Paris Bordone 1500–1571
NG 674 
Portrait of a Young Woman

Nicholas Penny, 2008

Extracted from:
Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II: Venice 1540–1600 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2008).

c. 1545

Oil on canvas, 100.9 × 82.5 cm

Inscribed ÆTATIS SUÆ / ANN. XVIIII on the architecture above the woman’s right shoulder

Support

The measurements given above are those of the stretcher. The painted surface measures 96.5 × 78 cm but the remains of the original canvas measure approximately 94.5 × 76.5 cm (see the section on Conservation below). Tacking holes and cusping can be discerned at the lower edge. These do not survive at the other edges, where, however, clear evidence remains of the stitching whereby the canvas was formerly enlarged. The original canvas is of a medium‐fine tabby weave and is lined with wax resin on to a modern tabby‐weave canvas of a similar weave. The pine stretcher with crossbars dates from the nineteenth century but was cut down when the picture was altered in format. It is stamped ‘G. Morrill’.

Materials and Technique

It is not certain whether the canvas was prepared with gesso, but none was found in the only paint sample which has been taken from the picture.¹ The priming is pinkish beige in colour and consists of lead white with red earth and a little black pigment. Under infrared light, patches of black appear in the deepest shadows of the crimson dress, and hatched black lines in the shadow to the left of the bodice. Three separate layers of red lake and lead white were found in the mid‐tone of the dress.² The delicate grey hatching of the flesh – most obvious in the eyebrows and below the chin – is characteristic of Bordone, as is the way that the irises with their very large pupils are crossed by a short, slightly curved line of white impasto.

There is only one pentimento of any significance: a series of white marks passing diagonally over the woman’s right breast. These perhaps indicate the original position of the pearl necklace.

Conservation

When the painting was acquired in September 1861 Eastlake was aware that it had been enlarged, a practice which he had observed to be common with old masters in Genoese collections.³ He was at first undecided as to whether or not the extensions should be removed, but we know from Wornum’s diary that the painting was consigned to ‘Mr Morrill to be lined’ and ‘the added portions to be partly cut away again’. This operation was complete on 11 December 1861 and between 16 and 19 December the painting was cleaned by Pinti.⁴ It was relined, cleaned and restored between June and September 1980, and the remaining additions were removed at that time. A border was left around the original canvas.

Condition

The painting is in very good condition. There are a few small paint losses in the higher of the two distant arches on the left and also in the skin to either side of the nose. It seems likely that the fine veining of the columns in the foreground was originally more evident. The yellow paint of the ornamental chain around the woman’s waist has darkened, since it almost certainly represents gold. It has probably become more translucent and hence more affected by the crimson of the dress underneath. The cross, probably painted with the same pigments, is lighter, except for the finial on the left, which was painted over the dress. Very slight abrasion to the shawl where it falls over the dress is likely. The shadows of the pearls and the little blue ribbons on the bodice of the dress appear to be perfectly preserved.

Dating and Attribution

The painting seems always to have been recognised as by Bordone. The facial type and expression, the colour of the flesh, the hatched brushstrokes in the shadows, also the curious anatomy of the left hand, are all typical of him. The style of the dress, especially the puffs at the top of the sleeves, suggests a date in the mid‐ to late 1540s. A close parallel is found in Lotto’s Portrait of Giovanni della Volta with his Wife and Children (NG 1047) which was completed in 1547.⁵

Setting, Dress, Accessories and Format

The woman stands in an architectural setting of indeterminate, and surely fantastic, character. There is a basamento at approximately shoulder height on the right, and above it there are engaged columns on pedestals and a wood‐framed glass window (with panes of bottle glass) aligned with the plinths of the columns. These plinths are unusually low, and also unusual is the fact that they are narrower than the base mouldings of the columns. It is not clear whether there are one or two columns to the left of the window.

In the left‐hand corner of the painting there is an opening with two improbably precarious flights of steps rising [page 47][page 48]at right angles to each other. The stairs lead to what might be taken for an arcaded loggia, two Ionic columns of which are visible, but is more probably meant for a central triple‐arched opening, of which we see one half. In any case the higher and wider arch defines the entrance to which these steps lead. A man stands in the entrance. The substructure of the building and the stairs are supported by two arches. As Gould noted, this depends on a staircase which is among the designs published by Serlio in his book of Architecture.⁶ It is, however, not as precisely drawn as the Serlian architecture in those of Bordone’s paintings in which architecture plays a larger part. In nineteenth‐century catalogues the structure was considered to be a ‘portion of the hospital at Genoa’ and the sitter was said to be a member of the Genoese Brignole family.⁷

The woman wears a necklace of pearls from which a gold cross is suspended. Four pearls identical in size to those strung on the necklace are attached to the cross, and a pear‐shaped pearl is pendant from it. There is a blue stone or enamel ornament in the centre of the cross. Around the woman’s waist there is an ornamental chain with hollow, perforated, multifaceted ornaments, each separated by three links of the chain. This chain extends to the woman’s left hand, which may conceal an object such as a miniature book, a scent bottle, a pomander or a locket.

The sleeves are detachable from the dress, as was usual in this period, and, although they are made from the same crimson silk with crumpled folds, they are embroidered with meandering textured bands. The fine translucent shawl worn around the woman’s shoulders appears to have originally covered her breast and to have been opened hastily and tucked negligently into the dress. Such ‘sweet disorder’ is not usually found in sixteenth‐century female portraiture in which the dress is accurately rendered, but there is another example among Bordone’s portraits, and Lotto’s Portrait of a Woman inspired by Lucretia (NG 4256) provides an earlier example. It is somewhat enticing, and one wonders whether it was regarded as provocative and ‘loose’, like a stray lock or dangling strap in other periods. This, together with the darting glance (active eye movements were deemed inappropriate for a demure maiden) and the boldness of the hand on hip, counteracts the chaste associations of the cross. All of these features except for the hand on the hip are also found in Bordone’s portrait known as the ‘Donna con lo sciattolo’ in the Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg (fig. 3).⁸

The woman’s coiffure is as tidy as it is elaborate, with regularly rippling locks on either side of the central parting, and a long tail of hair wound around the top of the head is bound by knotted plaits that rhyme with two strings of pearls which are also involved.

The format of a three‐quarter‐length figure framed by architecture and including a column base at head height is found in what is probably Bordone’s earliest surviving portrait, the painting of a young man once in the Baring [page 49]collection, which seems to be dated 1521 (the last digit is not clear).⁹ The pose of one hand on hip, together with the highly elaborate coiffure, is found in a painting by Bordone that probably dates from the 1530s and is in any case of earlier date than NG 674, the so‐called Violante in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich,¹⁰ which is now generally regarded as the portrait of a courtesan or of an ideal beauty for which a courtesan perhaps modelled. However, the same pose and a very similar architectural setting to that seen in NG 674 are also given by Bordone to a woman of the Fugger family.¹¹ By contrast, the features of the young woman in NG 674 clearly conform to the artist’s female ideal as also found in his mythological paintings. But this need not mean that NG 674 is not a portrait, since portrait painters have often ignored the idiosyncratic particularities of young beauties, and besides it would be very odd for a painting of an anonymous beauty to be inscribed with the information that she is aged nineteen.

Whether the sitter in NG 674 takes liberties which were permissible in a portrait of a young lady painted for her betrothed or is, rather, a mistress painted for her lover is a question which cannot easily be settled, but Bordone depicted many other female sitters with much more provocative states of undress (the original of NG 2097 was probably a case in point).¹² On the spectrum of Bordone’s female portraiture, which extends from decorous matron to lascivious courtesan, NG 674 seems to occupy a mid‐point.

Possible Companion Painting

Bailo and Biscaro in their monograph of 1900 proposed that this painting, traditionally identified as a ‘Portrait of a Lady of the Brignole family’, may be the portrait of a ‘most lascivious woman’ (‘donna lascivissima’) sent by Bordone to the Genoese Ottaviano Grimaldi from Venice, together with his portrait of Grimaldi himself.¹³ The idea was presumably suggested by the fact that NG 674 was once in a Genoese collection. Canova in her monograph of 1964 took up the idea and suggested that the portrait of Grimaldi might be a painting now in the Genoese public gallery in Palazzo Rosso, which is of the ‘same size and format’ and also includes an architectural view.¹⁴ The sizes are similar,¹⁵ but not the canvas type. Grimaldi was said to have visited Venice in 1524, whereas the male portrait in question is now dated to more than thirty years later.¹⁶ NG 674 was certainly not painted at the same date.

Cecil Gould suggested that a male portrait in the Uffizi might have been painted as the companion of NG 674.¹⁷ This painting is likely to be of a later date, moreover the figure is different in scale and he looks up to the left. Whether placed beside or opposite the woman in NG 674, he would not meet her eyes. The use of the same background motif does not suggest that it was a companion painting.

One aspect of NG 674 which does, however, suggest that it was made for a specific location and hence perhaps as part of a scheme which may have involved another painting is the fact that the light – very unusually in Bordone’s œuvre – falls from the right.

Circumstances of Acquisition

The acquisition of NG 674 is described by the Gallery’s director, Sir Charles Eastlake, in a letter of 20 September 1861 sent from Naples to the Gallery’s keeper, Ralph Nicholson Wornum: I have purchased here a portrait of a lady by Paris Bordone – about half length, but enlarged. It came originally from Genoa, where it was the fashion to increase the size of pictures. It will be a question when it reaches England how far to cut it down. I think the original boundary, at least above, would be too close to the head.I have had great trouble in getting the picture from the proprietor, the Duca di Cardinale (his late title was Duca di Terranuova). He was the owner of the ‘Terranuova Raphael’ sold a few years since for a large sum to Berlin. At first the Duke would only consent to sell six pictures together, including the P. Bordone for about £1040. I could not agree to this, not caring for the other 5 pictures. I offered £400, including agency & presents to the secretary & household – without fixing the price of the picture. The stimulus of gain to the subordinates was so powerful that the duke was induced to give the picture for 1500 ducats – £257-13‐1 – the ‘agency’ being £146. I have of course the proper receipts.The picture is safe at Messrs Igguldens, the correspondents of Messrs McCracken. There will be some exportation forms but I hope no difficulty. Please to direct Messrs McCracken to insure, for due time, per £500 to cover expenses.¹⁸ Eastlake himself was not likely to have been directly involved in this affair. It must have been managed by his Neapolitan agent, whose services he praised in the same letter: ‘The agent I have secured here will obtain access for me to the best collections – & he is most fearless in asking Dukes & Princes to sell.’ The Gallery’s accounts reveal payments made on 18 December 1861 to Messrs McCracken for the cases containing the Bordone and its frame (£13 11s. 9d.) as well as their commission (£2 5s.), and earlier, on 17 October, payments corresponding to those mentioned in Eastlake’s letter (£257 13s. 1d. and £146) which were made to a ‘Sigr. Carelli’,¹⁹ who must therefore have been Eastlake’s audacious and ingenious agent. He is presumably to be identified with either Gonsalvo (Consalvo) Carelli (1818–1900), a Neapolitan painter of landscapes and genre scenes, or his brother, the watercolourist Gabriele Carelli (1820–1900). Both artists had English connections and moreover may have known Eastlake when he had resided in Rome.

Wornum’s diary reveals that the painting arrived in the Gallery on 16 November 1861. It was hung on 27 December after relining and cleaning and glazed on 4 January 1862 (when its varnish was judged to be completely dry).²⁰

Provenance

Duca di Cardinale (formerly Duca di Terranova, Naples) by 1861 and previously, according to him, in Genoa, perhaps in [page 50][page 51]the possession of a branch of the Brignole family, since the sitter was said by him to have been a member of that family. Purchased from the duke by the National Gallery in 1861. The Duca di Cardinale would have been one of the two sons of Prince Giuseppe Pignatelli Aragona Cortes, Duca di Terranova and Marques de la Valle de Oaxaca (1795–1859). The titles of this family, which had property in Sicily, Spain and Mexico, are notoriously complex – the present head of the family has eighteen titles. Diego, the eldest son of Prince Giuseppe, owned the splendid neo‐classical Villa Acton in Naples (now Villa Pignatelli).

Copies

A portrait of oval format, or at least framed as an oval, which was evidently based on NG 674, was sold at Christie’s, London, on 27 February 1976, lot 92. The most notable difference was that the woman was not wearing a pearl necklace but had flowers pinned to her breast; it may have been made in the eighteenth century.

Framing

The painting was transported to London together with its Italian frame, which it is likely to have retained until it was reframed at some time between June 1962 and December 1964.²¹ Neither of these two frames can now be traced. The painting is currently displayed in a frame made in July and August 1981. It has radial stopped flutes on the principal moulding, which is separated by hollows from the sight edge and from the bead and fillet of the back moulding. To us the execution looks mechanical, the design rather mean and the colour somewhat repellent. The gilding has been rubbed to reveal the red bole beneath and then muffled with a layer of smoky grey.

Notes