Portrait of a Noblewoman

By 1564, when this portrait was dated, Lucas Cranach the Younger had been running his late father's workshop in Wittenberg for about ten years, and the family formula for portraits was still in use. The woman is shown at half length against a plain pale ground, her hands folded, looking straight out. Her name has not come down to us. What the picture records carefully is her wealth. She wears a black bodice with puffed shoulders over white sleeves, a red skirt and a small black cap, and several heavy gold chains of different patterns hang one over another across her chest, with rings on her fingers and embroidered cuffs at her wrists. The painting belonged to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in the 17th century, and it passed with his collection to Vienna.