Portrait of a Lady Holding a Rose
by SLINGELAND, Pieter Cornelisz. van, Oil on panel, 20 x 17 cm
This small panel was probably made in the 1670s, when Slingeland executed most of his delicate, genre-like portraits. It depicts in great detail a young woman standing in half-length and in three-quarter profile, with her head turned to the left, facing the viewer. In her right hand the lady holds a single pink rosebud; her left arm rests gracefully on a stone balustrade.
The painting is a betrothal or marriage portrait and in 1773 had a pendant, a portrait of a man with a statue of Mercury.