The portrait of Eleonore Gonzaga, depicted at the age of three in 1601, is one of the first paintings that Peter Paul Rubens did in the nine years he worked for the court of Mantua, where he served under Vicenzo Gonzaga.
The child was the daughter of Vicenzo I of Mantua and Eleonore de Médici. At the age of 24 she married the emperor of Germany, Ferdinand II. It was his second marriage.
They had no children but Eleonore raised the emperor’s seven children by his first wife. The time Rubens (1577-1640) spent in Italy allowed him to absorb the teachings of the Italian Renaissance masters and he became a virtuoso flooded with commissions from nobility and the church.