Hendrickje mit Pelzumhang

The woman is almost certainly Hendrickje Stoffels, who came into Rembrandt's household as a servant and became his companion after his wife's death. In 1654 the Reformed church council of Amsterdam summoned her, censured her for living with the painter unmarried, and barred her from communion; she was carrying his daughter at the time. This is no formal commission. Rembrandt never names her, yet he gives her the poise of a queen, one hand resting as if on a sceptre, wearing pearls and a fur mantle that falls open more freely than any respectable portrait of the day would allow. She stayed with him until she died, probably in the plague that swept Amsterdam around 1663.