Portrait of a Woman [recto]

c. 1508

Hans Holbein the Elder

Artist, German, c. 1465 - 1524

Shown from the chest up, a woman’s body faces us as she looks slightly off to our left in this vertical drawing. Her face and features are shaded in detail with white highlights that suggest pale skin. She has round eyes with heavy lids under lightly raised brows, a straight nose, and full lips in an oval-shaped face. Her headdress wraps around her neck and head and falls over her shoulders. She is enclosed by a drawn frame with rounded corners at the top and a curved bottom. The artist’s initials are partially visible within the frame near the lower right, “H.H.” Ink writing was added to a few areas of the drawing or has transferred from another page to this image.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    silverpoint with brush and black and brown ink over charcoal and leadpoint, heightened with white on white prepared paper

  • Credit Line

    Woodner Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall (Oval): 14.4 x 10.3 cm (5 11/16 x 4 1/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1991.182.18.a

Associated Artworks

Study of a Bearded Man [verso]

Hans Holbein the Elder

1508

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Furstenberg collection, Donaueschingen; purchased by Ian Woodner, New York, July 1985; by inheritance to his daughters, Andrea and Dian Woodner, New York, 1990; gift to NGA, 1991.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1990

  • Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, no. 62 (recto and verso).

1992

  • Dürer to Diebenkorn: Recent Acquisitions of Art on Paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 3.

1995

  • The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995-1996, no. 23.

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000-2001, 138.

2006

  • Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006 - 2007.

2012

  • Imperial Augsburg: Renaissance Prints and Drawings, 1475-1540, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2012-2014, no. 51.

2015

  • Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns, National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The British Museum, London, 2015, no. 22.

2017

  • The Woodner Collections: Master Drawings from Seven Centuries, NGA, 2017.

Bibliography

1995

  • The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995-1996: no. 23.

2012

  • Kennicott, Philip. "The Passion of the Renaissance, via Germany." Washington Post 135, no. 300 (September 30, 2012): E5, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right in pen and ink: .H.H

Wikidata ID

Q64572931

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