Portrait of a woman with a lace collar and a ribbon

This 1644 portrait of a woman in lace collar and ribbon belongs to Jordaens's active portraiture practice during the 1640s, when his reputation extended beyond Antwerp to the Dutch Republic and the Northern European courts. The Whitfield Fine Art provenance suggests this portrait passed through the London art market, the major conduit for Flemish portraits into British and American private collections. Female portraiture of this period was codified but not rigid: within the standard format of lace collar, dark dress, and jewellery, individual painters expressed distinct personalities through the handling of the face and the specific energy of their brushwork. Jordaens's portraits are distinguishable from van Dyck's aristocratic elegance by their more direct, less flattering engagement with the sitter's actual appearance.

The lace collar described in the title is the painting's most technically demanding element: Flemish lace of the 1640s was a luxury product of extraordinary complexity, and rendering its open mesh in paint required sustained fine brushwork against the darker ground of the dress. Jordaens manages this passage with the assured confidence of a mature painter, the lace described with economy and accuracy. The ribbon — perhaps in the hair or at the collar — provides a small accent of colour against the monochrome scheme.