Palma Vecchio, 'A Blonde Woman', about 1520

Set against a velvety black background a voluptuous woman regards us with an inviting sidelong glance that is both reticent and willing. She unveils her charms, and as she does so offers us a posy of flowers. Her crisp white linen chemise with pinkish touches in the shadows has fallen from her shoulder to reveal her breast, the curve of which is emphasised by the line of her blue silk ribbon. Her open chemise and the mantle loosely draped around her shoulders create a luxurious sense of plenty and beauty. A length of sheer material is wound into her pale gold hair, which cascades in waves over her neck on to her expanse of soft, milky skin. She holds buttercups, primroses and forget-me-nots, the colours of which echo the gold of her hair, rings and chain bracelet looped around her wrist, and pick up the green of her cloak, the rosy pink of her nipple and the blue of her ribbon. Our gaze follows the implied diagonal from her eyes to her breast to the posy of flowers.

The flowers may be a poetic allusion to Flora, the goddess of spring, after whom many similar images of scantily clad women such as this are named. Flora was also a common name for courtesans in sixteenth-century Italy. This painting is typical of a type produced in Venice in the first decades of the 1500s and is related to Titian’s famous beauty Flora in the Uffizi, Florence. Palma Vecchio is particularly associated with these half-length images of beautiful fair-haired women, which are not conventional portraits. The choice of flowers may also have symbolic significance. The forget-me-not asks for the giver to be remembered; the buttercup represents dazzling charms and the primrose is associated with young or first love and can mean ‘I can’t live without you'.

Palma Vecchio appeals to all of our senses in this intentionally erotic image, and we can almost feel the cool linen of the lady’s chemise and the soft floss of her hair, and smell the scent of the fresh posy of flowers and the warm expanse of her flesh. The gorgeous, rich colours – grass green, creamy whites and and pale gold set against the deep black background – add to the painting’s sensuality and opulence.

The same woman seems to appear entirely naked in another painting by Palma Vecchio – Venus and Cupid in a Landscape, in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. In that picture she reclines on the ground in a mountainous landscape and receives an arrow from her son Cupid, which points towards her breast as though about to wound her. The Fitzwilliam Venus has very similar facial features to the National Gallery Flora, even down to the dimple in her chin.

In sixteenth-century Venice, such images of beautiful young women were commissioned by collectors and the wealthy clients of courtesans. There is also evidence that successful courtesans commissioned such paintings of and for themselves, both as solid financial investments and as lasting records of their charms to be prominently displayed in their own apartments.