Description
This unknown woman wears the somber black dress and white double cap of a widow. She is seated in a chair of simple design, identifiable as Florentine and of a type associated with the austere lifestyle of the earlier religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98). The simplicity of the colors, directness of the sitter's demeanor, and composition reflect the "reform" movement in Florentine painting in the later 1500s. The paint surface is now damaged and it has not been possible to identify the artist. For another portrait from about the same time of a widow by the famous woman portraitist, Lavinia Fontana, see Walters 37.1915.
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