Provenance

Baldassare Odescalchi-Erba

Italian, died 1746

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Shown from the hips up, a woman with pale skin, wearing a sapphire-blue gown, looks over her left shoulder at us in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces our left in profile, and she looks at us from the corners of her large, hooded, gray eyes. She has an oval face with a straight nose, rosy cheeks, and her full, pink lips are closed. Wisps of brown hair fall across her forehead, and her face and neck are framed by a cloud of soft curls tied with a royal-blue bow over the ear on the side we can see. Around her neck is a cream-white pearl choker necklace. Her low-cut bodice is lined with transparent parchment-white fabric, which she holds at her chest with her right hand, farther from us. We see one blousy sleeve of her blue, satin dress, and the sleeve is tied at the elbow. Equally blousy white sleeves cover her forearms. With her left hand, closer to us, she holds a wreath of orange, pale blue, deep pink, and white flowers down by her waist. She is lit from the upper left, and the background behind her is dark in shadow. A patterned curtain hangs along the left edge of the painting.
Sébastien Bourdon, Countess Ebba Sparre, 1652/1653, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.34

Countess Ebba Sparre

Sébastien Bourdon · 1652/1653 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.5.34

Bibliography

1929

  • Enciclopedia Italiana di Science, Lettere et Arti. 35 vols. Rome, 1935-1943:25:175