Portrait of a Woman, after Bernhard Strigel

Art Historical Context

This 1871 etching, created after a portrait by the German Renaissance painter Bernhard Strigel, captures the refined elegance of a woman in period attire. Strigel, active in the sixteenth century, was known for his precise and dignified likenesses of European nobility and merchants. The print, executed on delicate chine collé—a technique that transfers the image onto fine Chinese paper before mounting it on a sturdier sheet—preserves the subtle modeling and expressive details of the original painting while making it accessible to a wider audience. The collaborative effort behind the work reflects the vibrant printmaking culture of nineteenth-century Europe. Publishers such as P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. often commissioned skilled etchers like François Liénard and Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart to translate old-master paintings into reproducible form. These editions allowed museum visitors and collectors to study Renaissance portraits without traveling to private collections. Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art through the Rogers Fund in 1912, the print exemplifies how reproductive etchings served both educational and artistic purposes, bridging centuries of portraiture traditions. Its modest plate size belies the rich historical dialogue it fosters between Strigel’s era and the Victorian age of mechanical reproduction.

About the Artist

François Liénard|P. & D. Colnaghi & Co.|Bernhard Strigel|Jules-Ferdinand Jacquemart (French|French) · 1813 |1860 –1894 |1890

French, Paris 1813–1894 Paris|