Raphael paints the Portrait of a Young…
1519 CE
Raphael paints the Portrait of a Young Woman (also known as La fornarina) between 1518 and 1520.
The woman is traditionally identified with the fornarina (baker) Margherita Luti, Raphael's Roman lover, though this has been questioned.
The woman is pictured with an oriental style hat and bare breasts.
She is making the gesture to cover her left breast, or to turn it with her hand, and is illuminated by a strong light coming from outside.
Her left arm has a narrow band carrying the signature of the artist, RAPHAEL URBINAS.
It has been suggested that the right hand on the left breast reveals a cancerous breast tumor disguised in a classic pose of love.
Another speculation is that she is touching her left breast to remind herself which side she last fed her child on, the child being Raphael's, the high renaissance painter.
X-Ray analyses have shown that in the background was originally a Leonardesque-style landscape in place of the myrtle bush, which was sacred to Venus, goddess of love and passion.
It is probable that the picture was in the painter's studio at his death in 1520, and that it was modified and then sold by his assistant Giulio Romano.
In the sixteenth century, the picture was in the house of the Countess of Santafiora, a Roman noblewoman, and subsequently became property of the Duke Boncompagni and then of the Galleria Nazionale, which still possesses it.