Follower of Joos van Cleve, 'Anna van Spangen, Wife of Adriaen van der Goes', 1543

A dark-haired lady wears a white headdress and a dark grey dress with a black yoke and brown fur linings in the sleeves. She is evidently well off: the neckline of her chemise is decorated with golden cords and rosettes, and she wears a gold chain and rings.

This is Anna van Spangen, identifiable from the lozenge-shaped coat of arms in the top right, which includes the shields of the van der Goes, van Spangen and Goudt families. Anna was the daughter of Laurens Pietersz (from an illegitimate branch of the van Spangen family) and Maria Goudt. In 1530 she married Adriaan van der Goes, who became Advocate of Holland in 1544. They lived in Delft and at The Hague, where Anna died on 14 April 1548, leaving five sons and a daughter.

This portrait was once considerably brighter, but it is covered with degraded and discoloured varnishes, and the background has been painted over (it was once a brilliant green). It may well have been one of a pair showing husband and wife – a portrait of Adriaan, apparently dated 1543 and giving his age as 38, is known from various copies. Another pair of portraits by Joos van Cleve shows the couple at a younger age and wearing clothes that indicate the pictures were painted long before 1543; these are owned by their descendants, and are on loan to the Prisenhof Museum, Delft, along with copies that include their coats of arms. It is possible that Joos painted them again later in life, and that this picture is a copy of his second portrait of Anna. Another portrait of Anna, in which she is seen to mid-thigh level, was sold at Sotheby’s in 1928; it was perhaps a slightly later enlargement of this painting.

Members of the van der Goes family frequently commissioned portraits. Paintings of Adriaan’s parents in the style of Marten van Heemskerck are dated 1541; one of their sons, Andries, was painted by Cornelis de Zeeuw in 1563.