Portrait of a Lady (van der Weyden)
Van der Weyden was preoccupied by commissioned portraiture towards the end of his life[1] and was highly regarded by later generations of painters for his penetrating evocations of character.
[2] She is slender and depicted according to the Gothic ideal of elongated features, indicated by her narrow shoulders, tightly pinned hair, high forehead and the elaborate frame set by the headdress.
[4] The woman, who is probably in her late teens or early twenties, is shown half-length and in three-quarters profile, set against a two-dimensional interior background of deep blue-green.
Van der Weyden's attention to the structure of the clothing—the careful detailing of the pins pushed into the veil to fix its position—is typical for the artist.
[3] The woman's left ear is set, according to art historian Norbert Schneider, unnaturally high and far back, parallel to her eyes rather than to her nose; this position is probably an artistic device used to continue the flow of the diagonal line of the veil's inner-right wing.
In addition the contours of her face are highlighted in a manner that is slightly unnatural and abstract,[12] and outside the usual spatial constraints of 15th-century human representation.
[13] This methodology was described by art historian Erwin Panofsky: "Rogier concentrated on certain salient features—salient both from a physiognomical and psychological point of view—which he expressed primarily by lines.
On the grounds of similarity of facial features, writer Wilhelm Stein suggested in the early 20th century that she might be Marie de Valengin,[17] the illegitimate daughter of Philip the Good of Burgundy.
[11] Because her hands are shown as resting on the painting's lower frame, art historians generally accept that this was an independent portrait, rather than a devotional work.
[19] In works such as Portrait of a Man in a Turban (1433), Jan van Eyck broke this tradition and used the three-quarter profile of the face which became the standard in Netherlandish art.
This indicates that although van der Weyden did not adhere to the tradition of idealised representation, he sought to please his sitters in a manner that reflected contemporary ideals of beauty.
[note 7][24] It is known that in his Portrait of Philip de Croÿ (c. 1460), van der Weyden complimented the young Flemish nobleman by concealing his large nose and undershot jaw.
Art historian and curator Lorne Campbell suggests that the popularity of the portrait is due more to the "elegant simplicity of the pattern which [the sitter] creates" than to the grace of her depiction.
While van der Weyden did not stay within the traditional realms of idealisation, he created his own aesthetic, which he extended across his portraits and religious pictures.
His figures may be more natural than those of earlier generations of artists; however, his individualistic approach to the depiction of his sitters' piety often leads to the abandonment of the rules of scale.
[13] John Walker, former director of the National Gallery of Art, referred to the subject as "outré", but believed that despite the awkwardness of her individual features, the model was nonetheless "strangely beautiful".
[15] Infra-red reflectography reveals that van der Weyden did not sketch the work on the board before he began to paint, and there is no evidence of underdrawing.
It shows that the lady was portrayed as more slender before changes were made as the work progressed; thickly applied background paint underlies some of the belt, demonstrating that the original silhouette was widened.
The painting was loaned for exhibition in 1902, when it was shown at the Hôtel de Gouvernement Provincial, Bruges at the Exposition des primitifs flamands et d'art ancien.
