Portrait of a Young woman with a Winged Bonnet

Rogier van der Weyden's Portrait of a Young Woman with a Winged Bonnet, painted around 1440 and now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, is one of the finest female portraits of the 15th century. The sitter wears the fashionable Burgundian hennin with its distinctive winged veil. Rogier's female portraits are distinguished by their combination of aristocratic elegance with psychological depth, a quality that made him the most sought-after portraitist in the Burgundian Netherlands.

Rogier achieves an effect of porcelain-like refinement through smooth, blended flesh tones, precise linear contours, and the elegant rendering of the translucent veil framing the sitter's composed, downcast features.