Infant Philipp in einem Harnisch

Painted in 1591 and held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, this portrait shows the infant Philip — later Philip III — as a child dressed in a miniature suit of armour. The subject is probably eight or nine years old, and the armour he wears is a ceremonial piece made to scale for a boy rather than a functional suit. The tradition of portraying royal heirs in armour reached back at least to the early sixteenth century: it expressed the dynastic expectation of military leadership and linked the royal child to the heritage of his armoured ancestors, particularly Charles V. Pantoja was working here before his appointment as principal court painter, and the painting shows him already in command of the conventions of Spanish royal portraiture. The Kunsthistorisches Museum version belongs to the cycle of Habsburg child portraits produced for Vienna, connecting the Spanish and Central European branches of the dynasty through the circulation of painted images of shared heirs.

The miniature armour presented Pantoja with the challenge of rendering complex metallic surfaces on a small scale, as a child's proportioned suit has different curvature and reflective qualities from adult armour. He manages this with careful tonal gradation. The face is painted with the delicacy appropriate to a child sitter, softer and more rounded than his treatment of adult complexions.