Portrait of a Woman
Andrea del Sarto·c. 1518
Historical Context
Del Sarto's Portrait of a Woman from around 1518, believed to be his wife Lucrezia del Fede, belongs to his series of female portraits that combined his mastery of atmospheric sfumato modeling with the psychological directness of the best Florentine portraiture. Lucrezia was a significant presence in del Sarto's life and art — she had a strong personality that contemporaries noted, and she appears in multiple of his paintings, her distinctive features recognizable across different works. His portraiture served the Florentine aristocratic and merchant world, and his technique of warm atmospheric modeling in the Leonardesque tradition gave his portraits a quality of individual presence unusual in the period's more conventional approach.
Technical Analysis
Del Sarto's oil on wood shows his supreme sfumato technique with soft, warm flesh tones and the atmospheric modeling that creates an image of gentle beauty and psychological depth.
Provenance
A. W. Young (sold, Christie's, London, February 26, 1910, lot 92, to Carfax Gallery); Carfax Gallery (London, England); Joseph Duveen, Lord Baron Duveen, 1869-1939 (New York, New York; London, England), by 1919, according to a letter of January 21, 1919, from Bernard Berenson to Duveen); James P. Labey and Glenn Hall (New York, New York), 1920; Mrs. Francis F. Prentiss, Cleveland, 1920, upon her death, held in trust by the estate; Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Estate, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1944.
See It In Person
More by Andrea del Sarto
.jpg&width=600)
More from the High Renaissance Period
Head of Saint John the Baptist on a Charger
Aelbert Bouts·ca. 1500
Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist
Antonio da Correggio·c. 1515
The Holy Family with Four Saints and a Female Donor
Antonio Rimpatta·c. 1510
Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, Saint Gereon, and a Donor
Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder·1520