> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# When the heir of the Austrian Habsburgs, Archduke Joseph, married the Spanish Infanta Isabella of the Italian cadet branch of the French Bourbons, his formidable mother, Empress Maria Theresa, commissioned a series of paintings, a sort of reportage from…
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/kogda-naslednik-avstriiskikh-gabsburgov-ertsgertsog-iosif-zhenilsia-na-ispanskoi-infante-izabelle-iz-italianskoi-bokovoi-linii-frantsuzskikh-burbonov-ego-mogushchestvennaia-mat-imperatr/
- Published: 2020-11-24T10:18:23.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:41:54.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Art, Monarchies, Mores

When the heir of the Austrian Habsburgs, Archduke Joseph, married the Spanish Infanta Isabella of the Italian cadet branch of the French Bourbons, his formidable mother, Empress Maria Theresa, commissioned a series of paintings, a sort of reportage from the magnificent wedding festivities, from the court painter Martin van Meytens. The enormous canvases convey the scale of the celebration: countless carriages, guests and musicians, lavishly decorated halls… Curiously, the people too were admitted to the monarch's feast, in small groups, so that they might observe the proceedings. Most of the noble ladies and gentlemen were likewise mere spectators; only a small circle of the imperial family sat at table. The chief purpose of all this splendour was to turn the page on the painful memories of the hardships of the Seven Years' War, which had exhausted the empire, and to show the neighbours that there was still powder in the flask. And besides, how could a marriage between the offspring of sworn enemies, the Habsburgs and the Bourbons, possibly go unnoticed?