Italian, Florentine, 'Portrait of a Lady', about 1535-50
About the work
Overview
We do not know the identity of the elegant young woman portrayed here, but her costume suggests a date of about 1540. She sits before a green curtain and meets our eye with a direct, confident gaze. The green curtain and the woman’s appearance and headdress are very similar to Bronzino’s Portrait of a Woman and her Little Boy of about 1540, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The National Gallery’s portrait may be of the same woman, slightly older.
The picture has been reduced in size and the paint has worn thin and been retouched in many places, which makes it difficult to work out who painted it. It was formerly thought to be by Bronzino or by Cristofano Allori (1577–1621), the son of Bronzino’s pupil Alessandro Allori. However, the dating of the costume to the 1540s makes it unlikely to be by Cristofano Allori, unless it is a copy of an earlier portrait.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Portrait of a Lady
- Artist
- Italian, Florentine
- Date made
- about 1535-50
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 59.1 × 48.5 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Holwell Carr Bequest, 1831
- Inventory number
- NG21
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
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
-
1962Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools (excluding the Venetian), London 1962
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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.