Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Title: Portrait of a Woman
Creator: Pollaiuolo, Antonio, artist
Description: From a series of portraits executed by Piero and Antonio Pollaiuolo. This woman wears a costly garment with elaborately embroidered sleeves. She wears a headdress that is adorned with pearls, and her necklace is composed ofwhite pearls and a bejeweled pendant. Portraits in which the female sitter displayed her material wealth were typically commissioned at the time of her wedding or as a commemoration of the event. Rendering the female sitter in profile drew from the majesty of classical portraiture but also served an ideological purpose: the woman's beauty and confident expression make her the embodiment of humanist virtue, in which outer beauty reflects inner merit, but her gaze is averted from the (likely male) viewer, thus encoding a sense of voyeurism into the work.
Source: WikiMedia Commons
Rights: Public domain
Subject (See Also): Classical Influences Nuptial Imagery Profile Portraits
Geographic Area: Italy
Century: 15
Date: mid-1470s
Related Work:
Current Location: New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 50.135.3
Original Location:
Artistic Type (Category): Digital images; Paintings
Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Panel paintings; Tempera
Donor:
Height/Width/Length(cm): 48.9cm/35.2cm/
Inscription:
Related Resources: