This striking portrait is one of a group of paintings dating from the 1550s depicting Phillip II of Spain. Shown in black and yellow costume and known as the 'black-and-yellow' type, these paintings are associated with official portraits of Phillip II as King of England (1554-58).

The 'black and yellow' portrait is thought to have been originated by Flemish painter Anthonis Mor van Dashorst. Mor was court portraitist to the Spanish Habsburgs and worked at courts across Europe. Following his marriage to Mary I, Philip II summoned Mor to England. The artist was given an annual pension, which implies a certain amount of permanency in his position. He probably remained at the English court for the duration of the Spanish King’s first visit (Philip returned to the Netherlands in 1555).

This portrait conforms to the ‘black and yellow’ type associated with Philip II’s official portrait as King of England (1554-1558). This type shows the king in his mid-to-late twenties. Depicted standing, he wears a white silk doublet worn beneath a short-sleeved black jerkin decorated with bands of silver-thread embroidery, diagonal slashes and gold brooches, over which he wears the Order of the Golden Fleece. Phillip also wears a black cap with a white plume and holds a pair of gloves in his left hand.

It is thought that the prototype of this image is lost, but numerous workshop versions survive with the same costume, but varying poses; some show Phillip resting his hand on a chair, and others, as here, where he leans on a red covered table. Although overshadowed on the continent by Mor’s Portrait of Philip II in Armour (c.1557) painted for Philip at El Escorial, in England, isolated from Catholic Europe after the death of Mary I in 1558, the black-and-yellow portrait persisted and was eventually co-opted into the anti-Habsburg propaganda of Elizabeth I.