Artwork
Noble Woman with Fan
Noble Woman with Fan is an ink print by the Baroque artist French 17th Century. It dates from 1623 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. The work is a black‑and‑white woodcut printed on laid paper, depicting a solitary woman in an elaborate costume.
About this work
Overview
The work is a black‑and‑white woodcut printed on laid paper, depicting a solitary woman in an elaborate costume. She stands upright, holding a fan, while a modest urban scene unfolds behind her, complete with a street, pedestrians, buildings, and a bridge. The composition balances the figure’s prominence with the narrative background, typical of early modern printmaking.
Subject & Meaning
The central figure is presented as a noblewoman, suggested by her richly detailed dress with ruffled collar and sleeves, and the graceful fan she holds. Her confident stance and the inclusion of a bustling townscape may allude to the social standing and public presence of aristocratic women in the period, offering a visual study of contemporary fashion and status.
Technique & Style
Executed as a woodcut, the image was created by carving the design in relief on a wooden block, then inking the raised surfaces and pressing them onto laid paper. The artist employs crisp, linear incisions to render intricate costume details and architectural elements, a hallmark of 17th‑century print production that allowed for relatively wide dissemination of such images.
History & Provenance
Woodcut prints of this type were commonly produced in the 1600s for both decorative and illustrative purposes. While specific information about the creator or original ownership of this particular print is not recorded, its material and stylistic traits align it with the broader European tradition of printed portraiture that circulated among collectors and the emerging print market of the era.
Artist & collection
Artist
Seventeenth-century French printmakers turned ink into story. Their tools were burin and acid, paper their stage. Look at the Beggar Woman with Rosary (1622), etched on laid paper, her hands folded around faith, or The…
