Portrait of a Young Woman with Parrot

Jan Sanders van Hemessen is first documented in 1519, at the start of his apprenticeship to Hendrik van Cleve I in Antwerp. It would appear that he then travelled to Italy, and the art of antiquity and of his own time he must have studied there was to have a decisive influence on his own style of painting. By 1524, Jan had been elected to the Guild of Saint Luke back in Antwerp (he became its dean in 1548), and was to remain there for the rest of his career. He is best known for his religious paintings, a number of which explore the possibilities of genre-like realism, but was also capable of creating dramatically sculptural, classically-inspired nudes, such as his 'Judith with the Head of Holofernes' in Chicago.
The present work, which is prominently dated to the year 1534 in the top left-hand corner, is a fine example of his gifts as a painter of portraits. Jan shows his sitter half-length so that she all but fills the available space, and to avoid anecdotal distractions sets her against a plain, dark backdrop. The result is that almost all visual attention is restricted to the bottom and the top of the composition. At the base are the expressive, elegant hands, the beautifully rendered gold chain, and above all the faultlessly observed African grey parrot, which may have had some symbolic significance, but just as easily simply have been an exotic pet. All this detail might have been a distraction from the sitter herself, but such is the compelling power of the young woman’s penetrating and appraising gaze that we find our eyes constantly straying back to her face.