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Portrait of an Elderly Woman
(Renaissance Europe )
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.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1881 catalogue: no. 234; 1897 catalogue: no. 501, as Hans Holbein the Younger]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Conservation
| Date | Description | Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| 7/24/1939 | Treatment | coated; varnish removed or reduced |
| 9/8/1942 | Treatment | other |
| 3/1/1959 | Treatment | other |
| 3/12/1973 | Treatment | cleaned; coated; filled; inpainted; varnish removed or reduced; x-ray |
Geographies
Italy, Florence (Place of Origin)
Measurements
Painted surface H: 38 11/16 x W: 28 7/16 x D excluding cradle: 3/8 in. (98.3 x 72.3 x 1 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.257