Portrait of a Gentlewoman

This portrait dates to around 1660, late in Jacob Jordaens's life. The sitter is a woman of some means, posed for a formal likeness, yet her name has not come down with the picture. That was often the fate of private portraits. The painting recorded a particular person for her own family, and once that family and its papers were dispersed, the name went with them and left the face on its own. It is a modest canvas, about 68 by 50 centimeters in oil, and it entered the Uffizi catalogued as a Flemish Baroque portrait. It is listed there now simply as the portrait of a gentlewoman.