Portrait of a Lady

c. 1485

Neroccio de' Landi

Artist, Sienese, 1447 - 1500

Shown from the chest up, a light-skinned, blond young woman wearing a gold and red gown and pearls looks off to our left in this vertical portrait painting. Her face and body both angle to our left, and she gazes in that direction with brown eyes under faint brows. She has smooth skin, a long, straight nose, and her closed, light pink lips curl up slightly at the corners. Long, cottony, light blond hair falls over her ears and flows down beyond her shoulders. At the back of her head, she wears a caramel-brown cap decorated with black, web-like lines and a row of pearls along the front edge. Her bodice is the same golden brown color, with the black linework in a leaf and floral pattern. The low neckline runs straight across her chest, and swaths of scarlet-red fabric wrap over her shoulders to meet in a wide V. Clusters of three tiny pearls line the squared edge of her neckline. A double-stranded pearl necklace has a red gemstone pendant that hangs at the base of her neck. A third, single strand of pearls hangs low over her chest, holding a pendant with a magenta-pink stone flanked by more pearls. A landscape stretches into the distance behind her. Dark green, grassy fields dotted with trees leads back to a winding body of water, over her shoulder to our right. Stone walls enclose at least two clusters of buildings, including several towers, far back along the banks. The light blue sky is tinged with petal pink near the horizon, over mountains painted blue in the hazy distance. An ivory-white band spans the bottom edge of the portrait, and is inscribed, “QVANTVM HOMINI FAS EST MIRA LICET ASSEQVAR ARTE. NIL AGO: MORTALIS EMVLOR ARTE DEOS.” The band is flanked by a triangle to each side; the one to our left has the letters “CP” or “OP,” and the one to our right reads “NER” with the N and E conjoined. The painting has an ornately carved, brown wooden frame. A rope design divides the border into alternating squares and rectangles. Each rectangular box has a pair of carved eagle heads flanking an orb, while a flame-like shape is in each of the smaller square boxes. The boxes and trim have slate-blue backgrounds, and gold edging.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 8

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on pine panel

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 47 x 30.5 cm (18 1/2 x 12 in.)
    overall (engaged frame): 61.8 x 45.6 x 5.2 cm (24 5/16 x 17 15/16 x 2 1/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1942.9.47

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Professor Luigi Grassi [1858-1937], Florence and Rome), by June 1911. (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London), by September 1911;[1] sold January 1912 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Philadelphia;[2] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[3] gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] In a letter of 11 June 1911 Sulley informed Bernard Berenson of his decision to buy the Neroccio portrait from Grassi. On 11 September of the same year he wrote again to Berenson, stating that the portrait was already in London. See Berenson's correspondence in the archives of the Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti, Florence.
[2] The Widener collection card (in NGA curatorial files) records the painting as having been "bought from Sulley, January 15, 1912." Joseph Widener wrote to Berenson on 5 March 1912 about "recent additions, the best of which...is that charming little portrait by Neroccio di Landi" (David Alan Brown, Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979: 21, 53 n. 34).
[3] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:344.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1933

  • A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture Lent from American Collections, Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 121, repro., as Portrait of a Woman.

1979

  • Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 34, repro.

1992

  • Art and Culture Around 1492, Monasterio de Santa Maria de las Cuevas, within the grounds of the Universal Exposition, Seville, 1992, no. 100, repro., as Portrait of a Young Woman.

2007

  • Renaissance Sienna: Art for a City, National Gallery, London, 2007-2008, no. 51, repro.

Bibliography

1916

  • Berenson, Bernard, and William Roberts. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early Italian and Spanish Schools. Philadelphia, 1916: unpaginated, repro.

1923

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 150, repro.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Thirty-five Portraits from American Collections." The Art News 29, no. 33 (1931): 4.

1942

  • Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 6.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 5, repro.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 66.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 74, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 96.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:16, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 85, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:293, as Bust of Alessandra Piccolomini.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 254, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:343-344; 2:pl. 250.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 82, no. 35, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 292, repro.

1990

  • Campbell, Lorne. Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries. New Haven, 1990: fig. 102, color fig. 103.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 557, fig. 693.

2002

  • Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 95.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 531-535, color repro.

2004

  • Hiller von Gaertringen, Rudolf. Italienische Gemälde im Städel 1300-1550: Toskana und Umbrien. Kataloge der Gemälde im Städelschen Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main. Mainz, 2004: 337 n. 72.

2006

  • Rosenberg, Pierre. Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. Milan, 2006: 48-49, 233, color fig.

2008

  • DePrano, Maria. “‘No painting on earth would be more beautiful’: An Analysis of Giovanna degli Albizzi’s Portrait Inscription.” Renaissance Studies 22, no. 5 (November 2008): 634-636, fig. 8.

2015

  • Sallay, Dóra. Corpus of Sienese Paintings in Hungary 1420-1510. Florence, 2015: 179.

2023

  • Kondziella, Martha. Sodoma: Die Tafel- und Leinwanbilder. Merzhausen, 2023: 328, fig. 314.

Inscriptions

across bottom: QVANTVM.HOMINI.FAS.EST.MIRA.LICET.ASSEQVAR.ARTE. / NIL.AGO:MORTALIS.EMVLOR.ARTE.DEOS. (Whatever a human being is permitted to, I attain through my prodigious art; yet, a mortal competing with gods, my effort is useless); lower left in triangle: O.P.[?]; lower right in triangle: NER

Wikidata ID

Q20174436

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