Portrait of a Woman

Strigel's Portrait of a Woman from around 1510-15 represents the mature style of the Memmingen painter who served as court painter to Emperor Maximilian I and was one of the most important German portraitists of the early sixteenth century. Strigel worked in the Augsburg/Memmingen region of Swabia, the same wealthy commercial territory that produced Holbein the Elder, and his portraiture served the prosperous merchant and civic elite of southern German cities. His female portraits combine Flemish influence in their precise observation of costume and physiognomy with the more linear German approach to figure rendering that characterized Swabian painting of the period.

Strigel's oil on linden panel displays the sharp, precise Northern Renaissance technique with carefully rendered costume details, jewelry, and headdress, and a smooth, enameled finish typical of the Swabian school.