Queen Mariana de Austria as a Widow

Queen Mariana de Austria as a Widow, painted in 1669 and now in the Museo del Prado, depicts Philip IV's second queen in the black mourning dress she wore following her husband's death in 1665. Mariana (1634–1696) was born an Austrian Habsburg and had married her uncle Philip IV in 1649, becoming the mother of the future Charles II. After Philip's death she served as regent for her son — a politically embattled role in which she was supported by her confessor Everard Nithard against the opposition of Philip IV's illegitimate son, Don Juan of Austria. Carreño's portrait presents her with the gravity of widowhood and regency combined: the black dress signals mourning, but the bearing and setting assert continued sovereign authority. By 1669 Carreño was court painter and this was an official commission — a document of the regency's legitimacy in painted form, the queen-regent demonstrating that power remained concentrated in her person.

The all-black court dress presented Carreño with the challenge of rendering a figure largely in monochrome — he responds by differentiating black silk, black velvet, and black lace through subtle variations in surface sheen and texture rather than colour contrast. The queen's face emerges from this dark mass with considerable presence, modelled in warm, careful tones against the surrounding darkness. White lace or collar details provide the only strong value contrast.