Category:Portrait of a Noble Young Lady

"That dating is supported by the sitter's dress, including particularly the close-fitting, small double-banked ruff. A similar example is found in the Portrait of Livina van der Beke, pendant to that of her husband, Pieter Dominick (both Antwerp, Private Collection; Pierre Pourbus: Peintre brugeois, 1984, Bruges, Memling Museum, no. 19, exh. cat. by P. Huvenne), both dated 1558. Dress is, of course, always a fluid judge of date, and one could note the relatively small development in fashion from the very similar dress of the central figure in the celebrated Allegory of True Love of circa 1547 in the Wallace Collection, London. However, the Dominick-Van der Beke portraits also share with this painting many stylistic similarities that support their contemporaneous dating: the simple, neutral tone of the background and the general placement of the sitter in the picture, the softer modelling of the flesh tones, the fluid execution of the lacework and the confident strokes of the underdrawing where it is visible. Interestingly, infra-red photography has also revealed a pentimento in the left fore-arm of the sitter.