Venetian School, 18th Century, Portrait Of A Lady With Fan

Venetian school, 18th century

Portrait of a lady with fan

Oil on canvas, cm 79 x 60

With frame, cm 92 x 74

The oil on canvas in question, to be reported to the Venetian school of the eighteenth century, faithfully reproduces the famous portrait known as La Dama in Bianco or Portrait of a Lady with a Fan currently held at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, one of the most significant works of Tiziano Vecellio’s mature period (Pieve di Cadore, 1488/90 - Venice, 1576), which contributed to consecrate him as one of the greatest portraitists and prominent figure of Venetian painting. The work depicts a young girl posing three-quarters, wrapped in a sumptuous white brocade dress of refined sartorial workmanship, adorned with delicate gold embroidery and lace on the shoulders and thin puff sleeves. With her right hand, the woman holds a typical sixteenth-century fan with casual elegance. The face catalyzes the viewer’s attention, adhering to precise canons of Renaissance beauty as they reveal the high forehead, the thin eyebrows, the vivid look of black eyes, the pale cheeks mottled with red, and honey-colored hair styled in a chignon.

As can be seen from a letter of the painter rediscovered for his publication in the treatise Il Microcosmo della Pittura (1657) by the art historian and physician Francesco Scannelli, the painting was sent to the Duke of Ferrara Alfonso II d'Este in 1561, describing it as "the most precious being in the world".