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Portrait of a Lady

Scipione Pulzone (Italian, before 1550-1598)

ca. 1580-1589 (Renaissance)

oil on canvas

Painted surface H: 46 7/8 x W: 35 7/8 in. (119 x 91.2 cm)

Description
The unidentified noblewoman rests her hand on a keyboard instrument, the playing of which was considered virtuous for a woman. Pulzone has carefully rendered the textures of her luxurious dress down to the smallest details, including the refined lace of her cuffs and collar and the embroidery of the black dress.

The stately, formal, and somewhat stiff three-quarter figure, exemplified by Pulzone's painting, had become standard for aristocratic portraiture in late 16th-century Europe.

For more information on this painting, please seeFederico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 238, pp. 360-361.
Additional Information

Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902

37.605

Charles Street: Third Floor: 16th Century Art

Rome, Italy


Provenance

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 396, as Giovanni Battista Moroni]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

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