Portrait of a Young Woman

The portrait of a woman in Berlin – the only one by Petrus Christus that is known presents the sitter in an interior which is indicated by a greyish-brown wall with brown wooden panelling. The light that enters from the left contributes to the tangible impression made by the subject and her position in space. The young woman, who turns towards the beholder and regards him attentively, wears a black
velvet bonnet embellished with a gold border and tiny pearls. Her neck is decorated with a precious, elaborate gold chain in three rows. The blue dress is bordered with ermine. A black velvet loop projects downward onto her forehead, from which the hair has been combed back in accordance with the fashion of the times, allowing the contours of the head to emerge prominently. Emanating from her pale face, with its dark eyes and delicately curving lips, is a peculiar fascination. Despite her
aristocratic dignity, the narrow shoulders, slender neck, and delicate body make the sitter seem remarkably fragile. These qualities are underscored by an aura that is somehow strange, womanly yet childlike.
Despite numerous attempts to identify this young woman, her identity remain unknown. One supposition is that she was Isabella of Bourbon (died 1465), the second wife of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. Another proposed identity is Alice, the wife of Edward Grymeston, whose portrait (London, The National Gallery) Petrus Christus painted in 1446. When it was acquired in 1821, the picture was still attached to the putatively original frame, which bore an inscription that was
transcribed by Gustav Waagen in 1824 as “Opus Petri Christophori”. Waagen identified
the young woman as the “niece of the famous Talbot”. Referred to was Lord John Talbot (died 1453), the first Earl of Shrewsbury. The young woman can hardly have been his niece, however, since she had died already in 1421. More plausible candidates would be Talbot’s granddaughters Anne and Margaret, the daughters of the Second Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1468, Elizabeth Talbot, the Duchess of Norfolk, and their aunt, stayed in Bruges in 1468 on the occasion of the wedding of Charles
the Bold and Margaret of York. It is tempting to assume that her two young nieces accompanied her, and that one of them was portrayed by Petrus Christus on this occasion; a hypothesis that is not entirely improbable.
This enigmatic young woman has been situated geographically not just in England, but in France as well. Listed in the inventory of the collection of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92) in Florence, and explicitly identified as a work by Petrus Christus (“opera di Pietro Cresti da Bruggia”), was a portrait of a French lady (“una testa di dama franzese”). Secure authentication for this provenance has however never been produced, just as the names proposed continue to lack reliable evidence up to the present. Meanwhile, a dating of the work to the 1440s, which was advocated earlier, has proven unsustainable. Instead, it must be dated to circa 1470, positioning it within the late phase of this artist’s career. A comparison with Memling’s portrait of Maria Baroncelli of 1470–71 (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) or the portrait of Maria Hoose by the Bruges Master of 1473 (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts) supports this later dating with regard to correspondences between the costumes as well. Rainald Grosshans | 200 Masterpieces of European Painting – Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2019