The identification of the sitter as the artist's wife is based on a comparison with the portrait of her included in the artist's self-portrait of 1699 in the Rijksmuseum (B. Gaehtgens, Adriaen van der Werff, Munich, 1987, pp.372-4, no.109, and colour pl.VI_). Van der Werff married Margareta Rees, the orphan daughter of a Dordrecht sailmaker, in August 1687. For the present picture he reused the pose from his portrait of Elisabeth Dierquens of 1694 in the Goltziusmuseum, Venlo (ibid., pp.404-5, no.144, illustrated)