Portrait of a Woman Standing

This painting was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who wrote:

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN STANDING. B. 145; M. 197. Almost three-quarter-length. She is turned three-quarters left, and looks at the spectator. Her left hand grasps her gold chain; the right hand is extended before her. She wears a lace-trimmed cap, a black silk dress, a ruff, and lace wristbands. To the left is a coat-of-arms, which has been repainted. This is not, as has been assumed, a pendant to 287. It was painted about the years 1630–35. Inscribed near the coat-of-arms, "aeta suae 37"; panel, 37 inches by 28 inches (within the frame). Exhibited at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1904, No. 284. In the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, London.[1]

In 1974 Seymour Slive listed the painting as the pendant of A Man Holding a Skull and claimed then that despite cleaning of the coat of arms and recent documents the provenance was still inconclusive, and he read the inscription as "aeta suae 31", leading him to conclude the woman was aged 31 at marriage rather than 37.[2] Slive felt the painting could be dated to Hals' earliest period but felt there was too little "Hals juvenalia" to date it with certainty before 1610. In 1989 Claus Grimm listed it again as a pendant of the Man Holding a Skull but felt that it may have been painted somewhat later, but agreed with Slive that the period was before 1620.[3]

The possible pendants of this painting are

• 
  Hofstede de Groot catalog entry 287 (also located at Chatsworth House, this painting is attributed to Hals, but Hofstede de Groot rejected it as a pendant to this portrait)
• 
  Painting of A Man Holding a Skull, attributed to the period around 1616 when Hals painted his first militia company

• List of paintings by Frans Hals