This recently rediscovered portrait of a refined and self-assured female sitter is a mature work by Sebastiano del Piombo, one of the greatest painters of the Cinquecento. While this work probably dates to the early 1540s, the image type is part of the Venetian tradition of idealized female portraits first popularized by Giorgione, Titian, and Palma Vecchio. The composition is known in three iterations, of which this, the largest and most pristine, is undoubtedly the prime, autograph version.
Positioned behind a ledge, the sitter confronts the viewer’s gaze while also remaining aloof. The composition is near-monochrome in palette and the sole hint of color derives from the red fabric peeking out near the sitter’s right cuff. Her dark hair is largely covered by a white veil, which she modestly pulls back from her face. With her other hand, she clasps to her breast a crown of laurel, thereby associating her with the art of poetry. But as is common in Renaissance portraits of women, her identity remains unknown. Indeed, rather than an actual woman, she might be better understood either as a feminine ideal, the embodiment of poetic inspiration itself, or as a depiction of Laura (whose name means "laurel" in Italian), Petrarch's beloved muse.
Until the present work’s rediscovery, scholars considered the so-called Kennet version to be the prime original, though frequently noting the work’s poor state of preservation.1 The third version, today in the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale in Lazio, is nearly identical to the Kennet composition, and is most likely a later copy of that work. Even before the present panel’s re-emergence, however, both Roberto Contini and Mauro Lucco suggested that the Kennet work was not an autograph Sebastiano del Piombo, but rather, a copy of a lost original.2
This panel, which Mauro Lucco considers "without question the original," is the largest of the three versions and thus the only painting that corresponds with the work listed in three successive Barberini inventories, dated 1644 through 1672. These all describe the work, by the hand of Sebastiano del Piombo, as a portrait of a woman holding a crown of laurels in her left hand.3 The two later inventories further specify the painting’s dimensions: four palmi, or 89.36 cm., precisely, which corresponds with measurements of the present panel (and is about twenty cent.mes ters taller than the Kennet or Lazio versions).4 An inscription on the panel's verso indicates it was once owned by a member of the Russian Dolgorukov (or Dolgoruky) dynasty, several paintings from whose collects ion are now in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
Further underscoring the present work’s autograph status, Sebastiano made significant changes to the composition while painting the panel. Pent.mes nti, or corrections, appear in the position of the sitter’s hands, arrangement of her cost.mes , and disposition of her sloped shoulders. IRR imaging (fig. 1) reveals that the artist re-conceived the height of the ledge three t.mes s, until finally deciding on its current position, the lowest of the three vantages with which he experimented, which ensures that both of her hands remain fully visible.
We are grateful to Professor David Ekserdjian and Dr. Roberto Contini for endorsing the attribution to Sebastiano del Piombo.
1 Previously in the collects ion of Lord and Lady Kennet, and by whom sold at Christie’s, London, 9 July 2015, lot 146. Michael Hirst, for instance, described it as “scarcely more than a ruin.” M. Hirst, Sebastiano del Piombo, Oxford 1981, p. 117.
2 R. Contini, in Sebastiano del Piombo, 1485-1547, exhibition catalogue, C. Strinati (ed.), Milan 2008, pp. 230-231, cat. no. 56; M. Lucco, L'opera completa di Sebastiano del Piombo, Milan 1980, p. 124, under cat. no. 99.
3 Inv. no. 44 (April 1644), no. 223: “un ritratto di una donna che tiene alla mano sinistra una carona [sic] di lauoro, con cornice di noce di fra Bastiano del piombo.” Inv. no. 71 (August 1671), no. 50: “Un ritratto di Una Donna che tiene nella Mano sinistra una Corona da Lauro di mano di F. Bastiano del Piombo, di Grandezza p.mo 4.” Inv. no. 72 (1672), no. 23: “Un Ritratto di Una Donna che tiene nella mano sinistra una Corona di Lauro di p.mi 4—Con Cornice di noce mano di Fr. Sebast[ian].o del Piombo.” Lavin 1975, pp. 166, 294, 337.
4 The dimensions are given in the 1671 and 1672 inventories. One Roman palmo is equivalent to 22.34 cm.