A Young Woman in a Feathered Beret

Jan de Bisschop was a successful lawyer and accomplished draftsman, known for masterful applications of rich, luminous washes with a brush. His drawings typically copy other artworks, and this one seems to record a lost painting by Frans van Mieris. It is one of a group of drawings that de Bisschop supplied to Hendrik Bary as designs for prints. The related engraving is accompanied by a short couplet that suggests the image is not merely a portrait but a memento mori meant to warn viewers against futile vanities: "Even if Venus does not win the crown for me, how swiftly age will steal my beauty, and fevers and death my very self."
Watermark: (Countermark) Letters "PR".