The seated model is sumptuously dressed, with silver-lamé collar and cuffs, a pearl choker and a very dark green dress with silver decorations on her skirt and gold ones on the bodice and sleeves. She has flowers in her hair and long earrings. The heavy crimson velvet curtain behind her is echoed by a matching mat on the buffet. The scene opens onto an urban background that recalls the city of Venice, with a felza-covered gondola in the foreground and further back, a domed building that resembles the Cathedral of San Marco.

While this painting is thought to be a portrait of one of Charles I of Mantua’s daughters, it also resembles Claude Mellan’s engraved likeness of Maria Luisa Gonzaga, who successively married Polish kings Wladyslav IV and Casimir V and died on May 10, 1667.