Susanna Stefan, Wife of Wolfgang Furter

Artist: Nicolas de Neufchâtel (Belgian, Active 1561 - 1567)

Original Dimensions: 36 1/8" x 27 3/8"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (Early 1560s) "The demure young woman in this portrait is Susanna Stefan of Nuremberg. The picture may well have been painted around the time of her marriage to Wolfgang Furter, probably along with a pendant portrait of her husband. A damaged inscription gives her age as 18 and a date in the 1560s; the coats of arms below it are those of the Furter and Stefan families, which appear in Wolfgang and Susanna’s epitaph in St John’s Cemetery in Nuremberg. Susanna is richly but modestly dressed, with plaited hair and a black hat, a high-necked white shirt decorated with red embroidery and a dress of watered red silk with crimson velvet facings and fur cuffs. At least nine other portraits, all apparently by Neufchâtel, show women similarly dressed. The government of Nuremberg regulated the lives of the city’s inhabitants rather strictly – they may have become used to conformity of dress as in other matters." - (National Gallery of Art, London)