Portrait of a Young Woman (van der Weyden)

Last updated
Portrait of a Young Woman
Rogier van der Weyden - Portrait of an unknown young woman - British Museum 180945001.jpg
Artist Rogier van der Weyden
YearCirca 1440–1445 [1]
TypeDrawing, silverpoint on ivory-coloured prepared paper
Dimensions16.7 cm× 11.7 cm(6.6 in× 4.6 in)
Location British Museum
AccessionPD 1874-8-8-2266
Website Museum page

Portrait of a Young Woman is a drawing by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It depicts a young woman wearing a headscarf pinned to her hair and has been variously dated as c. 1430s and c. 1440 - 1445. [1] The identity of the woman has not been established, nor her social class. The drawing is presumably a study for a painted portrait now lost, but likely to have been similar to the Portrait of a Woman in Berlin. [2]

Contents

Description

The drawing is worked in silverpoint on ivory-coloured prepared paper. On the reverse is a 17th-century (or possibly earlier) inscription "Ruggero di Bruselle/1460" (i.e. "Roger of Brussels 1460"), which suggests it was already connected with van der Weyden from an early date. The workmanship is of top quality, the modelling subtly worked to suggest a three-dimensional sculptural effect. [3]

The sitter is presented in three-quarter view and appears lively and direct. Her clothing gives no real clue about her status. Campbell and van der Stock remark that on the one hand the relatively flat cap suggests a middle-class background, while on the other hand the fur-lined collar suggests the upper-class. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rogier van der Weyden</span> Early Netherlandish painter (c. 1399 – 1464)

Rogier van der Weyden or Roger de la Pasture was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly successful in his lifetime; his paintings were exported to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign princes. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the following 200 years; today he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third of the three great Early Flemish artists, and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.

<i>The Descent from the Cross</i> (van der Weyden) Painting by Rogier van der Weyden

The Descent from the Cross is a panel painting by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden created c. 1435, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. The crucified Christ is lowered from the cross, his lifeless body held by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

<i>Portrait of a Lady</i> (van der Weyden) c. 1460 painting by Rogier van der Weyden

Portrait of a Lady is a small oil-on-oak panel painting executed around 1460 by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The composition is built from the geometric shapes that form the lines of the woman's veil, neckline, face, and arms, and by the fall of the light that illuminates her face and headdress. The vivid contrasts of darkness and light enhance the almost unnatural beauty and Gothic elegance of the model.

<i>Diptych of Philip de Croÿ with The Virgin and Child</i> Pair of paintings by Rogier van der Weyden

The Diptych of Philip de Croÿ with The Virgin and Child consists of a pair of small oil-on-oak panels painted c. 1460 by the Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden. While the authorship and dating of both works are not in doubt, it is believed but not proven that they were created as wings of a devotional diptych and that at some unknown time the panels were broken apart. A diptych panel fitting the description of the Mary wing was described in a 1629 inventory of paintings owned by Alexandre d'Arenberg, a descendant of Philip I de Croÿ (1435–1511). Both have been approximately dated to 1460 and are now in Antwerp and San Marino, CA respectively. The reverse of de Croÿ's portrait is inscribed with the family crest and the title used by the sitter from 1454 to 1461.

<i>Portrait of a Woman</i> (van der Weyden) Painting by Rogier van der Weyde

Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting completed between 1435–1440 by the Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden.

<i>Portrait of Francesco dEste</i> Painting by Rogier van der Weyden

Portrait of Francesco d'Este is a small oil on wood panel painting by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden dating to around 1460. The work is in good condition and has been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York since 1931. When attributed as a van der Weyden in the early 20th century, there was much speculation amongst art historians as to the sitter's identity. He was identified as a member of the d'Este family from the crest on the reverse, and long thought to be Francesco's father Lionello, an Italian and highly placed Burgundian prince and patron of Rogier. In 1939 Ernst Kantorowicz identified the man as Lionello's illegitimate son Francesco, which is now generally accepted. The panel was painted when the sitter was about 30 years old and is considered one of van der Weyden's finest portraits, in many ways a culmination of his later, more austere work.

<i>The Magdalen Reading</i> Fragment of altarpiece painting by Rogier van der Weyden

The Magdalen Reading is one of three surviving fragments of a large mid-15th-century oil-on-panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The panel, originally oak, was completed some time between 1435 and 1438 and has been in the National Gallery, London since 1860. It shows a woman with the pale skin, high cheek bones and oval eyelids typical of the idealised portraits of noble women of the period. She is identifiable as the Magdalen from the jar of ointment placed in the foreground, which is her traditional attribute in Christian art. She is presented as completely absorbed in her reading, a model of the contemplative life, repentant and absolved of past sins. In Catholic tradition the Magdalen was conflated with both Mary of Bethany who anointed the feet of Jesus with oil and the unnamed "sinner" of Luke 7:36–50. Iconography of the Magdalen commonly shows her with a book, in a moment of reflection, in tears, or with eyes averted.

<i>Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin</i> Painting by Rogier van der Weyden

Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin is a large oil and tempera on oak panel painting, usually dated between 1435 and 1440, attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. Housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, it shows Luke the Evangelist, patron saint of artists, sketching the Virgin Mary as she nurses the Child Jesus. The figures are positioned in a bourgeois interior which leads out towards a courtyard, river, town and landscape. The enclosed garden, illusionistic carvings of Adam and Eve on the arms of Mary's throne, and attributes of St Luke are amongst the painting's many iconographic symbols.

<i>Lamentation of Christ</i> (van der Weyden)

The Lamentation of Christ is an oil-on-panel painting of the common subject of the Lamentation of Christ by the Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden, dating from around 1460–1463 and now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

<i>Virgin and Child with Saints</i> (van der Weyden)

Virgin and Child with Saints, is a large mid-15th century oil-on-oak altarpiece by the early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The work is lost since at least the 17th century, known only through three surviving fragments and drawing of the full work in Stockholm's Nationalmuseum by a follower of van der Weyden. The drawing is sometimes attributed to the Master of the Drapery Studies.

Ian Lorne Campbell is a Scottish art historian and curator. Campbell was Beaumont Senior Research Curator at the National Gallery, London from 1996 to 2012, and from 1974 to 1996 lectured on the Northern Renaissance at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He has curated major exhibitions at the National Gallery and other museums, including ones on Rogier van der Weyden at Leuven in 2009 and the Prado in 2015.

<i>Durán Madonna</i>

Durán Madonna is an oil on oak panel painting completed sometime between 1435 and 1438 by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The painting derives from Jan van Eyck's Ince Hall Madonna and was much imitated subsequently. Now in the Prado, Madrid, it depicts a seated and serene Virgin Mary dressed in a long, flowing red robe lined with gold-coloured thread. She cradles the child Jesus who sits on her lap, playfully leafing backwards through a holy book or manuscript on which both figures' gazes rest. But unlike van Eyck's earlier treatment, van der Weyden not only positions his Virgin and Child in a Gothic apse or niche as he had his two earlier madonnas, but also places them on a projecting plinth, thus further emphasising their sculptural impression.

<i>Portrait of Antoine, Grand Bâtard of Burgundy</i> Painting by Rogier van der Weyden

Portrait of Antoine, 'Grand Bâtard' of Burgundy is an oil panel painting by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden portraying Anthony of Burgundy, the bastard son of Philip the Good and one of his mistresses, Jeanne de Presle. The panel is dated to about 1460 and held in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Belgium.

<i>The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald</i> Set of lost paintings by Rogier van der Weyden

The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald was a set of four large panels painted by the Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden that decorated one wall of a court-room in the Town Hall of Brussels. They represented the Justice of Trajan, a Roman emperor, and the Justice of Herkinbald, a legendary Duke of Brabant. The panels were intended as a reminder to judges to dispense impartial justice and were admired by generations of visitors, including Albrecht Dürer.

<i>Pietà</i> (van der Weyden) Painting by Rogier van der Weyden

Pietà is a painting by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden dating from about 1441 held in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. There are number of workshop versions and copies, notably in the National Gallery, London, in the Prado, Madrid, and in the Manzoni Collection, Naples. Infrared and X-radiograph evidence suggest that the Brussels version was painted by van der Weyden himself, not necessarily excluding the help of workshop assistants. Dendrochronological analysis gives a felling date of 1431 for the oak panel backing, supporting the dating of the painting to around 1441.

<i>Virgin and Child</i> (van der Weyden)

The Virgin and Child is a painting by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden dating from after 1454 in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

<i>Jean Wauquelin presenting his Chroniques de Hainaut to Philip the Good</i>

Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good is a presentation miniature believed to have been painted by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It decorates the frontispiece to the Chroniques de Hainaut, MS KBR.9242, Jean Wauquelin's French translation of a three-volume history of the County of Hainaut originally written in Latin by the 14th-century Franciscan historian Jacques de Guyse.

<i>Saint Columba Altarpiece</i> Altarpiece painted by Rogier van der Weyden

The Saint Columba Altarpiece is a large c. 1450–1455 oil-on-oak wood panel altarpiece by Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden painted during his late period. It was commissioned for the church of St. Columba in Cologne, and is now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

<i>Portrait of Philip the Good</i> (van der Weyden)

Portrait of Philip the Good is a lost oil on wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, dated variously from the mid 1440s to sometime after 1450.

<i>A Man and A Woman</i> (Campin)

A Man and A Woman is the title sometimes used for a pair of oil and egg tempera on oak panel paintings attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Robert Campin, completed c. 1435. Although usually considered pendants or companion pieces, they may also have been wings of a since dismantled diptych. The latter theory is supported by the fact that the reverse of both panels are marbled, indicating that they were not intended to be hung against a wall.

References

  1. 1 2 Campbell & Van der Stock, p. 336
  2. Campbell (2004) p. 56
  3. 1 2 Campbell & Van der Stock, p. 335-6

Bibliography