(Antwerp 1515/20–1570)
A woman in profile,
signed with monogram upper right: F. F.,
oil on panel, 40 x 32.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Chavaillon collection;
their sale, Hôtel des Ventes de Châtellerault, Me Christophe Sabourin,
1 June 2003, lot 135;
sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 5 June 2014, lot 4;
where purchased by the present owner

The present depiction of a regal, bust-length female figure in profile lends a striking insight into the manner and working practice of Antwerp’s pre-eminent master of the mid-sixteenth century, Frans Floris. Characterised by its Italianate register and sculptural handling, the late Floris scholar Carl van der Velde considered the present work to be a study for a now-lost larger history painting likely executed in the late 1560s. Indeed, it was Floris’s practice of using such individualised tronies that informed the brilliance of the multi-figured monumental works of the next generation of Antwerp masters such as Peter Paul Rubens.

Discovered in 2003, van de Velde considered the present work superior to the two related versions discussed in his monograph (see C. van de Velde, Frans Floris [1519/20–1570], Leven en Werken, Brussels 1975), and likely the artist‘s prototype. The second version (see C. van de Velde, Ibid., vol. I, pp. 302-303, cat. no. 163, reproduced vol. II, fig. 86) is conserved in the collection of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat. A third version, catalogued by van de Velde as a copy (see C. van de Velde, Ibid., vol. I, p. 303), was once in the collection of the Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London, with a historic attribution to Otto van Veen.