Portret van Anna Roemers Visscher

A bust-length portrait of a woman set within a shaded oval frame, wearing a dark gown with a large pleated ruff and a delicate lace-trimmed cap. She is shown in three-quarter profile with her eyes cast slightly downward in a contemplative expression. Her name is presented on a rectangular block at the bottom of the composition.

Anna Roemers Visscher was a central figure in the Dutch intellectual and literary circles that developed emblem literature, a genre that translated moral and philosophical concepts into visual symbols. As the daughter of Roemer Visscher, author of the influential emblem book Sinnepoppen, her work represents the intersection of Northern Humanism and the symbolic visual culture of the seventeenth century.