Portrait of Elisabeth Pfyffer, half-length, in a black dress with a ruff and a fur-lined headdress, with a jewelled pendant showing the Virgin, holding a book, before a draped curtain

The sitter, Maria Elisabeth Pfyffer, wears an elegant black dress and a headdress characteristic of the period. She holds a richly decorated prayer book (a 'Bettbuch', i.e. a 'bed book' for nightly reading) and her robes are adorned with a pendant with an image of the Virgin enclosed in a gold frame, to which a pearl is attached.