Gonzales Coques, 'Portrait of a Woman as Saint Agnes', about 1680

A finely dressed young woman gazes assuredly out at the viewer. The distinct shape of her nose, the turn of her mouth and her faintly dimpled chin reveal that this is a portrait, though the sitter’s identity is unknown. She is shown in the guise of Saint Agnes, patron saint of young girls and virgins, with her attributes of a lamb (a symbol of her chaste innocence and her Christian devotion) and a sword (the instrument of her martyrdom).

Agnes was a beautiful young girl from a wealthy Roman family. They were early Christians, and Agnes was sentenced to death after spurning her suitors and pledging devotion to her faith. Her condemners tried to burn her at the stake; when this failed to kill her, she was stabbed or beheaded.

The saintly guise may have been chosen because the sitter and saint shared a name, or it may simply be that the artist, sitter or patron wished the sitter to be associated with Saint Agnes’s qualities of youth, beauty, piety, steadfastness and chastity. This didn't necessarily mean the subject of the portrait was unmarried; in fact, such characteristics might allude to the fact that she was about to be married, or that it was a commission by a proud husband of a virtuous wife. The silver support and the delicate finish certainly suggest that this was a precious object, perhaps painted for a loved one or spouse to carry with them.

The picture holds another clue to the woman’s identity. The ornately decorated stone portico in the background resembles the one designed by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens to connect the two wings of his house, the Rubenshuis, in Antwerp. If the building is the Rubenshuis, the picture must predate a 1684 print of the property that includes additions not featured here. The dating of the architecture and the sitter’s fashionable contemporary dress of about 1680 suggest that she may be a member of the Hillewerve family, who lived in the property at this time. No record of an ‘Agnes’ has yet been found, however.

Gonzales Coques was born and worked in Antwerp. He trained with Pieter Bruegel the Younger and David Rijckaert, and became a portrait and figure painter, patronised by both the Spanish Regents of the Southern Netherlands and the House of Orange, the rulers of the Northern Netherlands.