Girolamo di Benvenuto

Girolamo di Benvenuto di Giovannidel Guasta

Sienese, 1470 - 1524

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painter (1470-1524)

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Shown from the chest up, this pale-skinned woman wears a transparent veil and a green gown laced up the bodice in this vertical portrait painting. Her shoulders and face angle to our left, and she looks at us from the corners of her brown eyes with her head tipped slightly away from us. She has faint, arched brows, a long, delicate nose, and a rounded jaw. Shallow dimples to either side of her pale pink lips suggest a faint smile over a cleft chin. Her blond hair is pulled back under a diaphanous veil, which is held in place with a band around the crown of her head. The veil falls in gossamer folds over her shoulders. The bodice and sleeves of her gown are asparagus green. The front is laced over a white shirt, and the white fabric has been pulled through at her shoulders where the sleeves would be tied to the bodice. The gold dress and the white chemise are edged with bands of floral, geometric patterns in gold, and a gold belt wraps around her waist. The pendant hanging from her pearl necklace has red and blue gems set in gold, with three more pearls hanging from the bottom. Another necklace looks like a chain of small, star-like forms, and it is tucked into her bodice. She holds her right hand, to our left, cupped near her chest, and her other arm hangs by her side, off the bottom edge of the composition. The background is black, and the edge of the panel is decorated with a band of gold, geometric, knot-like patterns. The gold border disappears behind the woman’s shoulders, which span the width of the painting.
Girolamo di Benvenuto, Portrait of a Young Woman, c. 1508, oil on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.353

Portrait of a Young Woman

Girolamo di Benvenuto · c. 1508 · oil on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.353

Bibliography

1986

  • Angelini, Alessandro. In La pittura in Italia. Il Quattrocento. Ed. Federico Zeri. 2 vols. Milan, 1986: 2:649-650.

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: 337.