Artist: Marcus The Younger Gheeraerts
Date: 1613
Size: 109 x 82 cm
Museum: USC Fisher Museum of Art (Los Angeles, United States)
Technique: Oil On Panel
When the “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired by the Fisher Gallery in 1939 it was thought to represent Lady Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford, wearing a costume for a Bal Masque. The attribution was to a very famous personage of Jacobean England, a well-known patron of artists and poets. Unfortunately, the resemblance of this sitter is not close enough to allow an attribution to the Countess. Nevertheless, the “Portrait of a Lady” is a good representative portrait of its period and of the style of Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger to whom it has been assigned by scholars.Several elements mark this as a fashionable Jacobean portrait. The mask-like, heavily painted face of the subject is characteristic of the portrayals of Queen Elizabeth I, a type of depiction which became a fashion for much of Jacobean portraiture whether or not the subject was from the Royal House or of the titled gentry. Further placing this portrait in the Jacobean period is the large ruff collar and cuffs. These linen ruffs were wired and separated by drops of wax in order to frame the head of the wearer. A contemporary historian has noted that the collar was meant to set off the head as the
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