Rogier van der Weyden

was one of the great real­ist painters of all time. Born in 1400, he was one of the pio­neers of early oil paint­ing in North­ern Europe, along with his teacher Robert Campin and con­tem­po­rary Jan van Eyck. Most of his career as a mature painter (he lived until 1464) was spent in Brus­sels. His work was renowned in his own time and when he vis­ited Italy in 1450 he was wel­comed, given sev­eral promi­nent com­mis­sions, and appar­ently asked to tutor Ital­ian artists in the meth­ods of Flem­ish oil paint­ing. Despite his great influ­ence on later artists, after his death his name fell into rel­a­tive obliv­ion, and it was a mat­ter of schol­ar­ship in later cen­turies to iden­tify his (invari­ably unsigned) work, rec­og­nize his amaz­ing skill at high real­ism, and clar­ify his role in the devel­op­ment of mod­ern painting.

This paint­ing, “Lady Wear­ing a Gauze Head­dress,” was prob­a­bly painted around 1445. It is thought by some to be a por­trait of his wife, Eliz­a­beth Gof­faerts. This the­ory is given sup­port by the (then quite unusual) direct gaze of the sit­ter and a slightly softer style than was usual for van der Weyden.