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Although the identification of the sitter remains unknown, the attribution of the portrait to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger has been resolved on the basis of the elaborate inscriptions. A similar type of calligraphy is found on a number of works all by the same hand dating from the 1590s. These accord with the style of painting and the inscriptions on signed and dated portraits by the artist which come from the later part of his career. Gheeraerts was an important and popular painter of Netherlandish origins who achieved success towards the close of Elizabeth I's reign and was retained by Anne of Denmark, the wife of James I.
Portrait of a Woman is a typical example of Elizabethan allegorical portraiture. The symbolism, which is clearly of some complexity, embraces the tree, the stag, the flowers, even the birds and the sitters costume. The long-haired figure wears pearls attached to her wrist and a pendant with a miniature around her neck. The inscriptions on the present work, especially the verses in the cartouche to which those in Latin are related, allude to the mood of melancholy that dominates the portrait, but do not indicate the name of the sitter. Her pose is hieratic and her stance somewhat unsteady, but there has been an attempt to set the figure against a landscape as opposed to an interior which is more usual in Gheeraerts work. The portrait has not survived in good condition and the total effect is therefore not as grand as the artists famous Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, known as the Ditchley Portrait (London, National Portrait Gallery).
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