Lady Roxanda

In January 1526 Radu of Afumați, prince of Wallachia, married Roxanda, the youngest daughter of Neagoe Basarab, the ruler who had built the monastery church at Curtea de Argeș. Radu had spent his reign fighting Ottoman-backed rivals for the throne, and the marriage tied him to the founder's own line. That same year the painters finished the church's interior, which Neagoe had left incomplete at his death, and they placed the new couple on the western wall as its patrons, holding the church between them.

What you see is her half. The panel was cut apart when the murals were removed in 1882, and Radu's figure is missing, so the model of the church at the left edge breaks off where he once shared it with her. She wears a tall gold crown set, according to the museum, with rubies, sapphires and pearls, and a mantle of gold brocade over a red pleated gown. At the top right, white Church Slavonic letters on the blue ground still carry her name.