Portrait of a Lady

The thirty-eight-year-old woman depicted by Palamedesz. wears a sober black dress of fine material, trimmed in black; a flat, double-layer white linen collar; broad flat white linen cuffs; an elaborate lace headdress fastened with hoofdijsertgen (head irons); and holds a pair of tan leather gloves. Although she wears no jewelry, her attire is costly. Many portraits of this format were conceived as pairs, with the man on the left and the woman on the right side. It has been suggested that this woman’s mate appears in the Portrait of a Minister at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (47.1620). The Boston painting is the same size and is signed and dated in the same way as the Princeton portrait: the sitter’s age (AE [in ligature] T. 41), below which is the date (AO 1654), below which is the signature (A. Palamedesz. pinxit.). Both sitters look out at the viewer. Like the woman, the minister holds a pair of gloves in his left hand. Is his right-hand gesture meant to be declamatory, or is he indicating his wife in the pendant portrait? Does her conservative manner of dress identify her as a minister’s wife?