This portrait of Catalina de la Cerda was painted a year before her death, at the same time as that of her husband, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, 1st Duke of Lerma, whom she had married in 1576, many years before his elevation to duke and valide of Philip III. In 1602, three years after her appointment as chief chambermaid to Queen Margarita, whose portrait bears many similarities to this one, and both were paid for and entered the collections of the House of Lerma in the same year, 1607, so that the same could be said of it as for that of her husband, so that the intention of the couple's portrait was to present themselves as the "alter ego" of the royal couple and, presumably, to exhibit them together before the court. (For more details on this, see the portrait of the 1st Duke of Lerma).
In this magnificent and imposing full-length portrait, the Duchess of Lerma, with a hieratic demeanour and haughty gaze, is dressed in the courtly fashion of the day, wearing a black saya with a large lace lace trimming to match the cuffs, which the artist treats with the virtuosity of a miniaturist, as in the goldsmith's work around her waist. In her right hand, which rests on a crimson velvet armchair, she holds a fan, and in her left hand she wears a Dutch handkerchief with fine lace, two of the characteristic accessories of the courtly women's fashion of the time.
