2-999-752 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of a Woman in a Leopard Cloak, c1545. The luxuriousness of this gentlewoman’s stole or mantel of European lynx is set off against a variation of a simple linen béguin headdress, a modest style initially associated with the Béguines, a religious order with many communities in the Netherlands. It was very commonly worn by women of status in the 1520s to 1540s and is consistent in time with the slashed sleeves, square-cut bodice with a cleft and high-necked under shirt and over-shirt with an opening in the front.That the woman's pose is angled slightly toward our right--rather than in the reverse that would be expected of a woman depicted in a pair with her husband--suggests that the sitter is single or a widow. The black upper cap, sober expression, and unfocused downward gaze as she fingers a rosary could be read as suggesting that she is a widow.