Isabelle de Croye, engraved by Henry Robinson after S. J. Rochard (1832)

From: Portraits of the Principal Female Characters in the Waverley Novels (London: Charles Tilt, 1834)

This portrait of Isabelle de Croye, heroine of Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward (1823), is inspired by the eponymous hero's first glimpse of her: 'He speedily made the discovery that a quantity of long black tresses, which, in the maiden fashion of his own country, were unadorned by any ornament, except a single chaplet lightly woven out of ivy leaves, formed a veil around a countenance which, in its regular features, dark eyes, and pensive expression, resembled that of Melpomene, though there was a faint glow on the cheek, and an intelligence on the lips and in the eye, which made it seem that gaiety was not foreign to a countenance so expressive, although it might not be its most habitual expression.' (Ch. 4) Although not published in volume form until 1834, the plate bears the imprint '1832'.