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The romantic fantasy of shepherds and shepherdesses living in the wilds of Arcadia in Greece was a favored theme in ancient poetry that was revived in Renaissance Italy and around 1600 in the Netherlands. In the 1620s, Honthorst and Cornelis van Poelenburch created a fashion in elite circles for portraying young people in this way.The sitter here may be Catherina Elizabeth von Hanau (1607-47) who married in 1628. In any case, she is a noblewoman from the court in The Hague; an engraving of this portrait is among those of the highest aristocracy reproduced in a publication of 1640, "The True Portraits of Some of the Greatest Ladies of Christendom Disguised as Shepherdesses." Honthorst flourished in Rome and Utrecht as a painter of tavern and religious scenes. Turning to portraiture, he enjoyed the patronage of the court, with assistants preparing portraits for him to touch up.