This lovely miniature of Isabella shows her as a young girl wearing a grey silk dress and probably dates to around 1580. The distinguishing feature of the Spanish Habsburg family was the elongated lower jaw known as the Habsburg Jaw thought to be the result of centuries of inbreeding from the 16th to the 18th century.
Isabella Clara Eugenia was sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands (1598-1621) and ruled with her husband Albert VII Archduke of Austria. She was born in Segovia , the daughter of Phillip II of Spain. He gave her the Spanish Netherlands on condition she married her cousin Albert and they ruled jointly from 1601 as duke and duchess. It was their patronage to artists such as Brueghel and Rubens combined with their political alignments that made their court in Brussels one of the foremost political and artistic centres of Europe.