The portrait, signed and dated in the bottom left corner, was produced in 1605 during the painter’s stay in the court of Valladolid, a venture promoted by the Duke of Lerma, who made significant profit from it after selling his palace to the king to become a royal residence. During those years, Pantoja, who had been born in Valladolid, was at the peak of his career as a court painter.

It fits perfectly with the portraits of Charles I and Philip II made by Pantoja, and above all with the paintings of his master, Alonso Sánchez Coello (1531-1588), who adopted the models and style of Antonio Moro (1517-1576). The dryness and relative stiffness of the king are characteristic of the personal style of Pantoja, who does not contrive to soften his models the way Sánchez Coello did.

This life-size portrait was not commissioned by the king, and was probably ordered by a nobleman instead (as was the case with the portrait conserved in the Prado), for there is another one, dating from the same year and conserved in Hampton Court, that the king gifted to James Stuart, which is the one registered in the record of the works made by Pantoja for the king since 1603, where there is mention of another piece from 1608 that was brought to the Library of El Escorial, where it still remains. In the 19^th century, this piece was part of the collection of the Earl of Darnley at Cobham Hall, coupled with a painting of his wife, Queen Margaret of Austria, and was auctioned in London in 1957, when it entered this collection. The main difference between the London painting and this one resides in the large crimson tent depicted in the left-hand side of the first painting, which is replaced by an indoor setting in this piece. Otherwise, there are the similarities between the two, found in the damascened armour, the enormous , and the pose of Philip III (1578-1621).

The king is depicted indoors, standing, legs astride, and wearing a damascened corselet of the type worn by Carlos I (1500-1558) and Philip II (1527-1598) in portraits by Titian, although this corselet is richer in the profusion of its chiselled and gilded bands and the Immaculate Conception chiselled in the upper part of his breastplate, which conceal in part the blued steel of the armour. He is wearing an enormous with gold thread stitching which, as fashion demanded, separated the rest of his body from his head, which had a fairly inexpressive face, with short hair and sideburns, a quiff, thin moustache and a mouche that help soften the marked prognathism characteristic of the Habsburgs. The hands also emerge from ruffed cuffs with gold stitching, the right one holding a staff and the left resting on the sword’s handle, which hangs from a swordbelt that also houses a dagger of which we can see the grip.

The imposing and majestic figure of the monarch emerges from the shadowy background, training his serene gaze on the spectator in a cool and detached attitude. He wears the chain of the

 Order of the Golden Fleece 

a chivalric order founded in 1429 in Burgundy by Phillip the Good (1396-1467) following the model of the Order of the Garter founded in 1348 by Edward III. Based on a defence of chivalry and Christian values, but also political ones, it was a dynastic order that established ties of brotherhood. Conferral was seen as a reward or recognition of excellence. Its insignia consists of a chain decorated with blue and red enamelled stones, from which hangs the figure of an enamelled gold fleece. The chain is no longer hereditary, its numbers are limited and it must be returned to the Royal House on the death of its holder.

around his neck. Behind him, on a covered with a crimson , rests a helmet with a crest made of feathers of three orders, corresponding to his rank as captain.