Portrait of a Lady
c. 1460 · Oil on panel · National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
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This print
About this work
- Artist
- Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1390–1464)
- Year
- c. 1460
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Original size
- 34 × 25.5 cm
- Collection
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
- Movement
- Northern Renaissance
A young woman is shown half-length against a dark blue-green ground, her eyes lowered and her hands clasped tightly at the lower edge, wearing a transparent white veil pinned over a black headdress, a black dress with a fur-trimmed V neckline over a thin gauze inset, and a red belt with a gilt buckle. The pale, high forehead, plucked hairline and narrow shoulders follow the fifteenth-century Burgundian ideal of beauty, and the design is built from the geometric lines of veil, neckline and arms. Rogier van der Weyden painted the small oak panel in about 1460, late in his career, when he was much in demand as a portraitist. The sitter's name is not recorded. It is the only portrait of a woman generally accepted as entirely by his hand. The panel probably belonged to the Princes of Anhalt at the Gothic House at Wörlitz near Dessau; it was sold in 1925, bought by Andrew W. Mellon in 1926 and given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1937.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
A pale young woman in a sheer white veil, black dress and red belt against deep blue-green, quiet and luminous, for a bedroom, study or hallway at 16×24 in black. A deep teal, warm white or soft grey wall; it pairs with Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Northern Renaissance painting
- Era
- 15th century (c. 1460)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cream & beige
- Mood
- intimate
- Rooms
- bedroom, hallway or entryway, study or library, living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is Portrait of a Lady in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was Portrait of a Lady painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
