Painted lady Painted lady The Cynthia group of colourful butterflies, commonly called painted ladies, comprises a subgenus of the genus "Vanessa" in the family Nymphalidae. They are well known throughout most of the world. The group includes: The painted lady ("V. cardui") is a large butterfly (wing span ) identified by the black and white corners of its mainly deep orange, black-spotted wings. It has five white spots in the black forewing tips and while the orange areas may be pale here and there, there are no clean white dots in them. The hindwings carry four small submarginal eyespots on the dorsal
Portrait of a Lady (van der Weyden) Weyden's portraits were painted as commissions from the nobility; he painted only five (including "Portrait of a Lady") that were not donor portraits. It is known that in his "Portrait of Philip de Croÿ" (c. 1460), van der Weyden complimented the young Flemish nobleman by concealing his large nose and undershot jaw. When describing this tendency in relation to the Washington portrait, art historian Norbert Schneider wrote, "While van Eyck shows nature 'in the raw', as it were, Rogier improves on physical reality, civilising and refining Nature and the human form with the help of a brush." The high quality