Follower of Jacopo Tintoretto, 'Portrait of a Woman (perhaps Pellegrina Morosini Capello)', 1550 - 1559

This portrait was purchased in 1855 from the Venetian Capello family, and is said to represent Pellegrina Morosini, from one of the oldest and most important families of sixteenth-century Venice. Pellegrina married Bartolomeo Capello in 1544 and had two children, Bianca and Vettor. She died some time before 1559.

Pellegrina’s daughter, Bianca Capello, was the subject of much scandal during and after her lifetime. She was abducted from Venice by a Florentine merchant and married at the age of 15, shaming her family. Shortly afterwards, she became the mistress of Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who married her immediately after the death of his wife. In 1579 there was a state wedding and Bianca Capello became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, which brought glory and political advantage to the Capello family.

The sitter is portrayed as a confident and wealthy woman approaching 30 years old. She turns her eyes to meet ours with a direct, questioning look. Her gown is made of black velvet, although the very yellow varnish covering the blue pigment in the black paint now makes the dress appear green.

She wears a very long and expensive necklace of about 90 pearls – 74 of which are visible. It loops around the collar of her lace cape, which is tucked into her dress at the shoulders and would have reached to a point at the back of her waist. The lace was probably made by a member of the woman’s household and is very simply painted with criss-cross patterns of white lines on top of the flesh tones and black fabric below. The white brushstrokes have smudged at the corners of her bodice where the paint beneath was still wet. The sleeves of her dress are detachable, as was usual at the time, and her white linen undershirt puffs out between the joins.

The cap on the back of the woman’s head now looks very like her own blonde curly hair, but originally it may have been a pale pink. Her blonde curls are painted with soft brushstrokes into wet paint and her lips and skin are shaded with tiny hatched lines. Much of the oil-rich surface of the painting has cracked, especially on the face.

The two stone ledges in an apparently random arrangement on which the sitter here rests her hands are an unusual feature. The portrait similar in appearance and technique to two portraits of women (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna and the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) considered to be works by Tintoretto from early in his career. The pose of the arms, robustness and facial type of the sitter, the sketchy gossamer painting of the lace – the way in which it has smudged where painted wet-in-wet onto the black dress – and the lightning-like white highlights on the velvet sleeves are reminiscent of effects in Tintoretto’s Vienna Portrait of a Young Woman. It was probably painted by a follower of Tintoretto, perhaps from the mainland, in the early 1550s.