Queen Elisabeth of Valois, third wife of Philip II

This 1605 portrait of Queen Elisabeth of Valois, third wife of Philip II, is another posthumous image: Elisabeth died in 1568, thirty-seven years before Pantoja painted this version. She was born in 1545, the daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici, and arrived in Spain at the age of fourteen to marry the forty-year-old Philip II — a political marriage that, by contemporary accounts, grew into genuine mutual affection. She died of a miscarriage at twenty-two, and her death was mourned not only by Philip but by the court. Her image continued to be reproduced and revised throughout Philip III's reign as part of the canonical gallery of Habsburg queens maintained at major royal residences. Pantoja's version at the Prado likely draws on the earlier portrait tradition established during Elisabeth's lifetime, translating an older image into his own late Mannerist idiom while maintaining iconographic consistency with other versions in the series.

Working from earlier portrait sources, Pantoja maintains the characteristic features established in Elisabeth's lifetime portraits while applying his own mature technique. The costume is rendered with his familiar textile precision, though the historical specificity of mid-sixteenth-century French fashion required careful attention to silhouette differences from the post-1580 styles he painted from life. The posthumous face carries a slightly idealised quality.