Artwork story
About Portrait of a Woman of the Slosgin Family of Cologne
The artist and artwork
Barthel Bruyn the Younger painted Portrait of a Woman of the Slosgin Family of Cologne in 1557 in oil on a shaped oak panel. After his father's death in 1555, he took over the Bruyn workshop in Cologne and continued its production of clear, enamel-like portraits for the city's elite. An inscription gives the year and the sitter's age as thirty-four, while the shield identifies her family. The Met supports the attribution through comparison with Bruyn's signed portrait of Peter Ulner and a documented Crucifixion with donor portraits.
The world around it
The portrait belongs to a Northern Renaissance world reshaped by the Reformation and by prosperous urban families who used art to state lineage, marriage, and civic position. The Slosgins were prominent Cologne merchants descended from Johann Slosgin of Nijmegen, who settled in the city in 1415. Three Slosgin sisters fit the available age and family evidence, but surviving records do not identify which one is shown. Her covered hair and the white front of her bonnet indicate marriage. The panel probably once faced a portrait of her husband, now lost, making today's solitary image one half of a social pairing.
A detail to notice
The sitter's still face and lowered gaze contrast with an inventory of status. A gold-embroidered collar, pearl-set plastron, gemmed pendant, looped chain, eight rings, wide ermine sleeves, red cuffs, and patterned bonnet surround her pale skin. She holds folded gloves while a pear-shaped gold pomander hangs from her belt across the blue parapet. At upper right, the Slosgin arms display fire-kindling fans beneath paired red crests; at left, the inscription supplies her age. Time has changed the balance: copper-green paint in the ground has probably darkened, and increased paint transparency has made distinctions in the black brocade bodice harder to see. The portrait once presented brighter green and sharper black-on-black luxury.
Look closer: materials, scale, and subjects
The recorded object is painting made in Oil on oak and held in the European Paintings department.
Recorded dimensions include Shaped top, 17 3/4 x 14 1/8 in. (45.1 x 35.9 cm).
Subject terms include Portraits, Women, and Coat of Arms. Treat them as guideposts, not a complete interpretation.
Collection history and public-domain source
The collection credit line is The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931.
The individual artwork page and official image were verified as Public Domain on 2026-08-23T20:04:15.766Z.
No Context Gallery independently uses the public-domain image. The source museum has not endorsed, sponsored, or affiliated itself with these products.
Research sources
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