<p> This dissertation examines representations of the family in art and literature of the Spanish court during Philip IV's reign. I contend that depictions of royal and noble families in court settings&mdash;and by artists who resided at court&mdash;spoke to the monarchy's social and political concerns at a time of imperial crisis. Family is understood here not as a fixed entity, but as a mobile cultural construct that bent, in Golden Age Spain, to address a variety of needs. The emotional and theological intricacies of a prince's marriage indicated the preparedness or ineptitude of a king to be; a noblewoman's marriage abroad to a foreign prince embodied Spain's struggles to contain the Thirty Years' War; the depiction of an artist's family in a royal palace demonstrated the ambitions of the courtier-artist. </p><p> Chapter 1 examines V&eacute;lez de Guevara's play <i>Reinar despu&eacute;s de morir</i> (1635). I propose that the play's thematic interest lies in an attempt to reconcile the strictures of dynastic marriage&mdash;marriage for reasons of state&mdash;with the necessities of emotional fulfilment and mutual trust of marriage partners suggested in contemporary conduct manuals. Chapter 2 reads two short stories from Mar&iacute;a de Zayas's <i>Desenga&ntilde;os amorosos</i> (1648), "Mal presagio casar de lejos," and "Estragos que causa el vicio," as nationalist allegories. I suggest that the families Zayas depicts are metaphors for a Spanish national family, belagured in European theaters of war and beset by domestic conflicts such as the Portuguese and Catalonian uprisings of the 1640s. In Chapter 3 I explore a painting, <i> La familia del pintor</i> (1665), by Juan Bautista del Mazo, son-in-law of Diego Vel&aacute;zquez and heir to his post as painter of the king. I compare Mazo's <i>La familia del pintor</i> to Vel&aacute;zquez <i> Las meninas</i>. Mazo's proud portrayal of his own biological family and of a dyanasty of court artists indicates that the painting is not merely dervivative of his father-in-law's masterpiece, <i>Las meninas</i>; rather, Mazo has a pictorial agenda all his own, one that includes the social advancement of the court artist and of a multitude of heirs seeking the king's patronage in other careers.</p>