Flemish school, XVIII century.

Flemish school, XVIII century.
Saint.
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 23 x 18 cm; 36 x 31 cm (frame).
The painting offers us the portrait, in bust format, of a young girl richly attired. The woman wears a rich dress of a satin fabric and is covered with a cape that is trimmed with ermine. Both the dress and the cloak boast luxurious gold brooches covered with precious stones and pearls and other pearls adorn the ears of the young woman, which the hair leaves uncovered. The girl gathers her hair in several braids, letting it flow over her shoulders and dispensing with any veil or headdress. This last detail indicates the youth of the woman, as well as the fact that she is a maiden. The rich clothes of the figure, as well as the expression, abstracted, melancholic, almost absent, seem to indicate that we are not in front of a portrait, but before the figuration of a sacred character, probably a martyr saint, perhaps Saint Catherine, of noble origin and one of the most venerated saints of the late Roman period in Europe since the Middle Ages. The absence, however, of a specific attribute, as well as of a nimbus, leaves the door open to other possibilities.
The treatment of the features of the face, rounded, with full cheeks and fleshy lips, as well as the way the flesh tones are painted, with a soft pallor enlivened by the blush of the cheeks and the incarnation of the lips, or the type of lighting, from a powerful spotlight outside the composition, allow us to include this work within the production of the Flemish school of the eighteenth century.