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This Portrait of a Lady was formerly in the collection of Count Dumoulin Eckart (Berlin) where it remained until 1933. It was bought on the art market and has been part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection since 1935. It is the only surviving female portrait by Baldung Grien, although two others are known through written references and old reproductions. The painting is signed with the artist's initials, which form a monogram in the upper left corner. Next to the monogram is the date, of which only the first three numbers are legible.
This mysterious portrait reflects the influence on Baldung of another great German Renaissance artist of similarly individual character: Lucas Cranach the Elder. In fact this influence is so notable that it might be better to speak of a direct dependence by Grien on Cranach's models. This fact, pointed out by Koch in 1951, has led to a comparison of the present portrait with Cranach's Salome, now in the Szepmüveszeti Museum in Budapest and datable from around the same period. In 1991 Lübbeke compared the present work with another oil by Cranach also from 1530, the Judith in the Jagdschloss Grunewald (Berlin). The parallels between the Thyssen painting and the Berlin Judith are evident both in the arrangment of the composition and in the clothing. In fact Baldung repeats with some modifications a number of elements in Cranach's painting, such as the hat with the feathers, the chain and the necklace or the hood of strings of pearls holding the sitter's hair. These similarities are reinforced by the manner in which the sitter is presented, half length and with a slight frontal turn of the head.
In addition to the use of elements from Cranach, Lübbeke has also mentioned similarities with the work of the Flemish artist Jan Gossaert with regard to the composition, and with Netherlandish painting, which, for Lübbeke, would explain the smooth modelling of the face. The present sitter is depicted in a very limited colour range dominated by orange tones in the hairnet, the jewellery and the brocade of the dress, and a dark green which is almost black, used for the velvet of the hat and the dress. Next to them the whitened tone of the sitter's face stands out, only darkened by a few light shadows on the temple and in the contours. In fact the whiteness of the face scarcely contrasts with that of the pearls around her neck.
Attempts to identify the sitter have not yielded results. For many years the painting was considered a wedding portrait of one of the princesses of the House of Baden Durlach, but this identification has been rejected for chronological and historical reasons. It is now thought that, rather than being a portrait of a specific person, the painting depicts an ideal or the personification of a subject which so far remains to be identified.
Mar Borobia
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