Portrait of a Lady

In 1629 Velázquez left the Spanish court for Italy, and in Rome he fell ill. The Spanish ambassador there, the Count of Monterrey, and his wife Leonor María de Guzmán saw that he was nursed back to health. Outside the royal family he painted very few women, and the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin believes this one, smiling openly with a fan in her hand and her arm along a red velvet chair, is the countess. The identification was argued in 1964 from two things: a marble portrait of her carved for the couple's tomb in Salamanca, and the small embroidered stars on her dress, which match her husband's heraldry. The museum dates the canvas to around 1635, by which time Monterrey was running Naples as viceroy for Madrid.