Italian, Venetian, 'Portrait of a Lady', about 1515-20
About the work
Overview
This richly dressed lady, whose identity is unknown, sits behind a parapet against a plain, dark background. Her body is turning slightly away from us and her hand rests on the parapet, making it look as though she might be sitting at an open window. The parapet was a common device in Venetian portraiture of this period in bust-length or three-quarter-length portraits; it positioned the sitter further back in pictorial space and also solved the problem of how to disguise where the lower part of the sitter’s body was cropped.
The lady turns to look to the right. Perhaps she was once looking at a matching portrait of her husband. However, this might simply be the picture of an ideal beauty: such portraits were popular in Venice at this time, particularly by Palma Vecchio, to whom this painting has been attributed in the past. It has also been attributed to Bernardino Licinio, but the condition of the picture makes it difficult to tell for certain who it is by.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Portrait of a Lady
- Artist
- Italian, Venetian
- Date made
- about 1515-20
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 73 × 57.8 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1858
- Inventory number
- NG595
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
Bought at Rome, 1858, from ‘Signor Menchetti’.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
-
1987Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
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