Portrait of a woman at bust length

The room this portrait hangs in has changed its job twice. Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, who lived in these apartments until 1713, kept it as an alcove, a formal bedroom where a few visitors could be received, and Giovan Battista Foggini filled it with white and gold stucco between 1685 and 1687, working the names of Ferdinando and his wife Violante of Bavaria into the ornament. The Lorraine grand dukes who followed the Medici turned the alcove into a chapel, and a chapel it has remained, its walls hung with crimson silk damask from the mid-19th century, a Virgin and Child by Carlo Dolci and two round panels from Botticelli's workshop. This bust of a woman hangs among them. The gallery gives it to van Dyck with the word attributed, which is how a catalogue says the picture has his manner and no document behind it.