2 July – An Empress remembered, but not survived

Emperor Ferdinand III and his second wife Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Tyrol were married on 2 July 1648.

Their union began under a good omen, as the devastating Thirty Years’ War had just come to an end. Ferdinand already had two healthy sons (including the future Emperor Leopold I) from his first marriage, and it was hoped that his new young wife would provide many more. Maria Leopoldine fulfilled her duty without delay: eleven months later, after an extremely difficult childbirth, she bore a son — and died. She was just 17 years old.
There are few examples in European court portraiture that openly depict a princess or noble lady in an obviously expectant state. Pregnancy was usually suggested more subtly, through natural imagery such as flowers, ripe fruit, or the moon. Yet Maria Leopoldine’s famous full-length portrait by Lorenzo Lippi shows her unmistakably in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Tragically, only a few weeks — perhaps even days — later, the young Empress passed away.
Her final gift to the world, her son Karl Joseph, died at the age of 14.