Portrait of a Young Woman with braided hair

Durer painted this young woman in 1497, a couple of years after his first trip over the Alps to Italy had changed how he thought about drawing and proportion. He was 26 and building a name in Nuremberg. She wears her hair pinned up in a braid, a red gown over a chemise trimmed in black with embroidered letters that read like part of a motto no one has cracked. She once had a companion, a second portrait of a young woman with her hair loose, now in Frankfurt. The two were probably sisters of the wealthy Furleger family, though the family coat of arms in the background was added later, so their names stay uncertain. What holds you is the exactness Durer brought to a single face, the weight of the braid and the catch of light in the eyes.