La Fornarina
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Portrait of a Young Woman[1] (also known as La fornarina) is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1520. It is in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
It is probable that the picture was in the painter's studio at his death in 1520, and that it was modified and then sold by his assistant Giulio Romano. In the 16th century the picture was in the house of the Countess of Santafiora, a Roman noblewoman, and subsequently became property of the Duke Boncompagni and then of the Galleria Nazionale which still possesses it.
The woman is traditionally identified with the fornarina (bakeress) Margherita Luti, Raphael's Roman mistress, though this has been questioned. The woman is pictured with an oriental style hat and bare breasts. She is making the gesture to cover her left breast, or to turn it with her hand, and is illuminated by a strong artificial light coming from the external. Her left arm has a narrow band carrying the signature of the artist, RAPHAEL URBINAS. It has been suggested that the right hand on the left breast reveals a cancerous breast tumour disguised in a classic pose of love.
X-Ray analyses have shown that in the background was originally a Leonardesque-style landscape in place of the myrtle bush, which was sacred to Venus, goddess of love and passion.
See also
- Venus pudica
- La velata, another Raphael painting of the same sitter
