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Portrait of a Lady
  • Date: c. 1621 - c. 1622
  • Object Type: Painting
  • Medium: Oil on panel
  • Image size: 122.8 x 91.8 cm
  • Object size: 146 x 116.5 x 10.5 cm
  • Inv: P22
  • Location: East Drawing Room
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Description
Provenance
Further Reading
  • The unidentified woman is depicted seated in a low-backed armchair, before a black curtain drawn back to reveal an interior with rich leather wall-hangings and a magnificent fireplace adorned with a large painting.
    The sitter looks straight at the viewer with a steady if reserved expression. Her right arm rests on the arm of the chair while in her left hand she holds a lace handkerchief that rests on her lap. Her costly and fashionable attire consists of a black overgown (vlieger) with matching silk sleeves (attached to the gown with ribbons) worn over a gold-embroidered close-fitting corset and stomacher with large geometric tabs around the extended waistline and a floriate motif that recurs in numerous female portraits by Cornelis de Vos, and a full black skirt decorated with rows of vertical black braid. She wears a wide white millstone ruff and flat linen cuffs edged with Flemish bobbin lace. Her hair is pulled back and covered with a gauze cap. She wears an ear-iron which circles her head and from which hangs a small pearl earring. Her wealth and status is further emphasized through her jewellery, details of which have been beautifully revealed during the recent conservation of this portrait: two gold rings on her left forefinger, one of which is set with a precious stone, two matching bracelets, and an exquisite pomander, which hangs from her waist on long, gilt silver chain and is enameled and hung with pearls. This eye-catching object, along with her rings, handkerchief, and embroidered stomacher, were expensive items that often formed part of a wedding gift. The gown that she wears was the traditional attire of a married woman.
    As with P18, it is likely that P22 was painted with a pendant in mind. In accordance with rules on portraits of spouses, as a married woman, the sitter is portrayed on the heraldic left (the viewer’s right). The question remains however whether the portrait of the man (P18) was intended as her pendant, or if they were subsequently paired. Perhaps because of the presence of the lion in the painting over the fireplace (perhaps St Jerome and his lion in the wilderness, a rare subject in Flemish art of the seventeenth century), in Sir Richard Wallace’s day the pair were assumed to represent the artist’s brother Paul De Vos and his wife, Isabelle Waerbeke. Sir Richard Wallace already had Van Dyck’s portrait of Isabelle Waerbeke in his collection, which can be seen nearby in the East Drawing Room (P16). Research into the identity of the two sitters is ongoing.
    In this portrait, Cornelis De Vos very closely emulates the style of Van Dyck, particularly the artist’s portrait of his sister, Margaretha de Vos (Frick Collection, New York). Although unsigned and undated, it has been compared with other portraits by the artist of sitters in specific interiors, dated to the early 1620s.