Portrait of a Woman

Maker Robert Peake the Elder (British, ca. 1551 - 1619)

Additional Title(s)

An unknown lady, traditionally called as Eleanor Wortley, Lady Lee

Collections

Art Collectors' Council: 1995 - 2024

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date1615

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 81 1/2 × 47 3/16 in. (207 × 119.8 cm.) frame: 89 3/8 × 54 15/16 in. (227 × 139.5 cm.)

DescriptionThis is a large size, full-length portrait of a woman in an elaborate black satin dress and white silk decorated with diamonds and pearls. The sitter is portrayed against a backdrop of draped curtains.

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council, with additional support from the Adele S. Browning Memorial Art Fund

Status

On view

Label TextWith her elaborate black satin dress, trimmed in white silk and expensive lace and encrusted with jewels, this woman styles herself as a lavish widow. She looks out at the viewer with a modest expression, her face fashionably pale. Her jewelry—ropes of pearls at her neck and wrists, an intricate gold chain set with rubies and pearls, and a coronet of yet more pearls beneath a fine net veil—indicates her great wealth and high status. Later artists adopted the full-length format and emphasis on sumptuous costume seen here in their own portraiture. Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds, and Thomas Gainsborough, whose works are on view nearby, use this formula to lend glamour to their images of British aristocrats.

Object number2022.12