Portrait of a lady

Gheeraerdts is often said to be the last of the great Elizabethan portraitists and the first of a new wave of Flemish immigrant artists. He was perhaps the most successful and prolific of painters to the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts. His style was unmistakable and particularly suited to Queen Elizabeth I in her last years when she preferred to be depicted in stylised elaboration without any of the realism then prevailing in the Netherlands. Her demand that shadows be eliminated from the face set a fashion that continued into the Jacobean period. Although an inscription on this portrait identifies the sitter as Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain and Governess of the Low Countries, this is thought to have been added at a later date. Her true identity remains unknown.