Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Title: Young Lady of Fashion
Creator: Uccello, Paolo, painter
Description: This woman wears a dress with richly embroidered sleeves. Her headdress is adorned with pearls and her necklace is composed of white 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 Jewelry Nuptial Imagery Profile Portraits
Geographic Area: Italy
Century: 15
Date: ca. 1460
Related Work:
Current Location: Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, P27w58
Original Location:
Artistic Type (Category):
Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Panel paintings; Oil
Donor:
Height/Width/Length(cm): 44.1cm/31.8cm/
Inscription:
Related Resources: