Portrait of Magdalena de Passe
Magdalena was about thirty when her brother Simon proudly portrayed her. The border inscription praises her as a renowned female engraver. Magdalena’s likeness is flanked by the goddess Minerva, patron of the arts, and by the personification of the art of engraving holding the main attributes of the craft: a copper plate and burins, the sharp instruments used to incise the representations into the copper.