Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria ( January 5 , 1614 – November 20 , 1662 ) was an Austrian military commander , Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1647 to 1656 , and a patron of the arts . Biography . Born at Wiener Neustadt , he was the youngest son of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Maria Anna of Bavaria ( 1574 – 1616 ) , daughter of William V , Duke of Bavaria . His elder brother became Emperor Ferdinand III ( 1608 – 1657 ) . Leopold served as a general in the Thirty Years ' War and the Franco - Spanish War ( 1635 – 1659 ) . During the latter , the Spanish - Low Country forces under Leopold Wilhelm lost the Battle of Lens in an attempt to recover the city in 1648 . Later in the war , he sallied forth from the Netherlands on two occasions ; on the second , he successfully seized a number of northern French forts in February – March 1652 , forcing the French to withdraw forces from Catalonia to reinforce their northern frontier . This assisted Spanish forces in Spain in recovering Catalonia from the French - backed Catalan rebellion . Even though Leopold Wilhelm lacked the canonical qualifications , he was invested - with the help of his father - with a number of prince - bishoprics in order to provide him with an income . Unqualified as he was , he officially only held the title administrator — nevertheless realising the full episcopal revenues — of the prince - bishoprics of Halberstadt ( 1628 – 1648 ) , Passau ( 1625 – 1662 ) , Breslau ( 1656 – 1662 ) , Olmütz ( 1637 – 1662 ) and Strasbourg ( 1626 – 1662 ) . In 1635 , Pope Urban VIII authorised him to become the prince - archbishop of Bremen , but due to its occupation by the Swedes he never gained " de facto " power . He died at Vienna in 1662 . Patron of the arts . When he assumed the government of the Spanish Netherlands , Leopold Wilhelm , being a great lover of art , employed several painters from the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke , including the great Flemish painter David Teniers the Younger , who he not only employed as a painter but as keeper of the collection of pictures he was then forming . With the rank and title of " ayuda de camara , " Teniers took up his abode in Brussels shortly after 1647 . Immense sums were spent in the acquisition of paintings for the archduke , including paintings by Frans Snyders , Pieter Snayers , Daniel Seghers , Peter Franchoys , Frans Wouters , Jan van den Hoecke , Pieter Thijs , and others . A number of valuable works of the Italian masters , now in the Vienna Museum , came from Leopold ' s gallery after having belonged to Charles I and the duke of Buckingham . He commissioned the British painter John Michael Wright to travel to Cromwell ' s England , and acquire art and artefacts . When Leopold returned to Vienna , the pictures also travelled to Austria , and a Flemish priest , himself a first - rate flower painter , Van der Baren , became keeper of the archducal gallery . Leopold bequeathed his gallery to his nephew Leopold I , and it became imperial property . It is now part of the " Kunsthistorisches Museum " in Vienna . When the tomb of Childeric I , an early Merovingian king of the Salian Franks and father of Clovis I was discovered in 1653 ( May 27 ) by a mason doing repairs in the church of Saint - Brice in Tournai , it was Leopold Wilhelm who had the find published in Latin .