Portrait of a Young Woman

Two days ago we were discussing a Venetian Renaissance portrait; today we move to the north! Until 16 January 2022, the Rijksmuseum presents the exhibition Remember Me. More than 100 portraits, from Dürer to Sofonisba. Today, thanks to the museum, we present this amazing Petrus Christus from the collection of Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, which is on show in Amsterdam. It always stunned me how modern this girl looks. Enjoy!

Petrus Christus’s elegant portrait of an unknown woman is a highlight of Flemish painting. The young lady is dressed in the Burgundian style that was popular in both France and the Low Countries around 1470. Her blue dress has a deep V-neck, revealing a black stomacher. The contemporary Flemish chronicler Jacques Du Clercq described the deep neckline and the striking truncated cone-shaped headdress as the main features of a new fashion which made its debut in 1467.

In Flanders and Italy, the actual physical rendition of this ideal beauty differed. The northern silhouette with the deep V-neck and the tall headdress was far more elongated than in the south. Moreover, Flemish painters were renowned for their hyperrealism above all else. As a result, the white fur that lines the dress of Petrus Christus’s young woman is painted in such detail that it can be identified as létisse, the fur of a type of weasel. Another precisely reproduced detail is the tiny golden pin with which the sheer neckerchief, the veil covering her cleavage, is fastened to the stomacher. Despite this, the painter has stylized the woman’s facial features. Furrows and lines have been omitted, creating an almost porcelain-like mask of mysterious beauty. This combination of physical perfection and inapproachability strongly recalls the enigmatic women worshipped by courtly poets.

Italian artists and art lovers were fascinated by the Northern manner of painting, and Flemish painting was collected from an early date. The 1492 inventory of the Florentine ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici lists "a head of a French lady painted in oil" by Petrus Christus. It is tempting to identify this as the work just discussed, Christus’s only surviving painted women’s portrait. It bears a striking resemblance to the likeness of Ginevra de’ Benci, the earliest portrait by Leonardo da Vinci, who certainly had access to the Medici collection. The women have similar mouths and the same gaze and detached expression. But there is no evidence that this painting by Petrus Christus was in Florence. Since he is famous for his strong idealization of women, there is good chance that this was a portrait with similar features that has since perished.

P.S. Here you can read about most intriguing portraits from the Remember Me exhibition in Rijksmuseum! Make sure to see it!