Portrait of a Woman as Astrea, Probably Mary Josephine Drummond, Condesa de Castelblanco

With its springtime palette and luscious brushwork, this painting blooms before our eyes. The twenty-year-old sitter appears in the guise of the shepherdess Astrea, from the seventeenth-century pastoral novel of the same name. Milky-skinned and adorned with flowers, she is a vision of agrarian life turned glamorous. She holds a delicate golden staff and caresses a little dog, whose soft fur rhymes with the flowing folds and dynamic brushstrokes of the sitter’s brocade gown.