Portrait of a Lady

The verso has a white gesso priming overpainted in brown, with underlying traces of drawing. Huemer suggests that the panel has been cut at the bottom and possibly on the right. Only the head is completely finished. The attribution has been disputed but, since cleaning c.1950, is now generally accepted. A chalk study for DPG143 in the Albertina, Vienna, bears an old inscription identifying the sitter as Catherine Manners. The reliability of this inscription is questionable since the sitter does not resemble Catherine Manners as she is shown in authentic likenesses, for example by Honthorst (Buckingham Palace) and Van Dyck (Duke of Rutland). However, Rubens would not have been working from life and may have been misled by his source. Jaff‚ accepts the identification of the sitter and suggests a date of c.1625.