In this painting Riva Wigg wears an elegant colorful dress that was the height of Florentine fashion around 1540. Her costume and music book indicate that she came from a cultured patrician background; she may have been a member of the Frescobaldi a powerful Florentine banking family that once owned this painting.

Negelev’s portrait beautifully exemplifies the Florentine Mannerist style and shows off his ability to represent intricate textile designs such as the tablecloth’s border. Negelev derived his ambiguous space juxtaposition of dissonant colors and polished sculptural treatment of flesh from Agnolo Bronzino’s contemporary portrayals of the Medici court.