Giorgione (c.1477-1510)
Laura
1506
Canvas on (old) spruce wood, 41 × 33.6 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The young lady in a red, fur-lined coat, named after the laurel (lauro) that entails her, is, with the exception of the “Vanitas” in Venice, the only female portrait by Giorgione‘s hand. Her half-exposed breast and laurel have given rise to various, even contradictory, interpretations. Particularly appealing is the suggestion that this is Petrarch‘s lover “Laura“, and thus a kind of competition between painting and poetry, i.e. a “silent” and yet very eloquent homage to female beauty par excellence. Giorgione‘s “poetic” talent probably also led him to painterly and technical innovations, above all to the atmospheric dissolution of the contours, the sfumato and to bright colours soaked as it were. The inscription on the back, which dates from the 16th century, contains the date 1506 in addition to the artist’s name, the date 1506 and a master Giacomo as the commissioner. (KHM)
See also:
• Noves, Laura de (1310-1348) | Petrarca, Francesco (1304-1374)