Italian, 'A Man and his Wife', mid-1540s

This portrait of an unknown husband and wife is unusually intimate. The costumes have been dated to the mid-1540s. It was rare at the time for a man to be depicted with his hand resting on his wife’s shoulder in such an affectionate way. It was also slightly unusual for a woman to be shown on her husband’s right-hand side, which was regarded as the position of honour. The woman in Lotto’s Portrait of Giovanni della Volta and his Wife and Children, painted in 1547, is also shown on her husband’s right-hand side.

The couple are depicted outdoors in an area enclosed by trees. The lady is standing before a fruiting lemon tree and holding a pink carnation, which was a flower associated with betrothals and divine love. The fruitful lemon tree may symbolise her fertility. Lemon trees appear frequently in religious art of the time from Verona, such as Gerolamo dai Libri’s Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, and the portrait may also have a Christian undertone.

The sitters' bodies are angled towards one another, but they do not look at each other or at us, both staring obliquely into the distance. Their lack of eye contact and unfocused gazes make them appear a little wooden. The lady appears to have been holding her gloves or a handkerchief in her other hand. The unusual dimensions and the manner in which the woman’s hand is cropped suggest that the painting may have originally been longer and has been cut down in the past.

The picture is badly damaged, so it is difficult to tell who painted it. The portrait came from a collection in Ferrara and may have been made in North Italy but perhaps by a Flemish rather than an Italian artist. The costumes are provincial from northern Italy and suggest that the painting is not Venetian.