Portrait of an old woman, bust-length, with a white headscarf

The present picture is a later replica of the picture by Sir Peter Paul Rubens in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (inv. no. 3339), dated by Held to circa 1615-16. This model was used by Rubens at least twice in works from the 1615-20 period of his activity. She appears as an elderly nurse in the Madrid version of Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes, and also in his Discovery of Erichthonius by the Daughters of Cecrops in Vaduz. The Ottowa study was, according to Held, certainly made from life (see J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, Princeton, 1980, I, p. 610, no. 444, p. 431), although some believe it to be closer to Jacob Jordaens.