Portrait of a Woman (van der Weyden)

Portrait of a Young Woman (or Lady Wearing a Gauze Headdress) is a painting completed between 1435–1440 by the Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden.

The sitter in this small work wears a wide, white hennin over a brown dress, which features a black-lined, v-shaped neckline.

As is usual of van der Weyden's female portraits, her hands are clasped tightly in prayer, while her expression is generally humble.

She is lit from a source above the canvas to the viewer's right, which sets up the falling light used to contrast the vivid white of her veil and flesh against the dark tones of her dress and volume of her head.

[6] The portrait was held in the collection of a Princess Soltikoff in Saint Petersburg until acquired by the Berlin State Museums in 1908.