Portrait of Victoria Colonna
Cristofano Dell'Altissimo, 1552-1568
Polo Museum, Fiorentino
Inventory of 1890 Item #204
I'm poking about the online inventories of the Uffizi in Florence today. It's a bit confusing because they maintain their info based on the cataloging event, which means you have to search each group seperately.
I found the search engines through: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uffizi.firenze.it%2Fmusei%2F%3Fm%3Dcostume
Click on "Digital Archives" in the menu on the left. Searching the inventories has been working for me.
I'm poking about the online inventories of the Uffizi in Florence today. It's a bit confusing because they maintain their info based on the cataloging event, which means you have to search each group seperately.
I found the search engines through: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uffizi.firenze.it%2Fmusei%2F%3Fm%3Dcostume
Click on "Digital Archives" in the menu on the left. Searching the inventories has been working for me.
Yes! So happy about this, as I have indeed always secretly wanted a sheer black partlet.
ReplyDelete:)
ReplyDeleteI did a little dance, myself!
You're going to think me a terrible spoil-sport, but if that's a portrait of Vittoria Colonna then it has to be a posthumous one (she died 1547), and therefore what's worn in it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Also, I believe what looks like a partlet might be a mantle or veil of some kind, because the edging of it appears to frame her face. I don't know when this was painted, but it might be a posthumous view of how Vittoria would have looked as a widow, hence the black veiling. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteThe painting is part of a series of historical figures both ancient and contemporary. They number in the hundreds and include such figures as Plato, the daughter of Suliman the Magnificent, and various other personages who the artist was unlikely to have met so I'm not surprised to hear that this one was probably posthumous.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that necessarily makes her clothing implausible. I looked at every one of the paintings in the series and fashions of more contemporary Italian personages all seem perfectly consistent with know styles during the 100 year period prior to the paintings being made. I couldn't say if they are suitable for the time and place all those people lived, but they certainly weren't meant to jar the eye of the beholder.
For me that means the painter and his audience found the outfit plausible and thus so do I. YMMV of course!
Being so dark it is very difficult to see the details of her .outfit, even on the larger version you can see on the museum site, but my examination leads me to believe she is wearing two separate pieces, a partlet and a veil of sheer black fabric. I have seen other women wearing this combination in white but his is my first indication of black as a possibility.
Since you mention that she was already dead when the painting was made perhaps the back fabric was meant to indicate that state?
I'm looking forward to hearing other people's ideas!
Just passing on the advice on good research techniques that was passed on to me when I first started researching, no disrespect intended. If it's posthumous you can't really claim any detail to be accurate unless you can back it up with other examples. Looking for other black partlets might be a good idea, but that is of course completely up to you.
ReplyDeleteYes, more examples would certainly begin to take this from an interesting find into the realm of Actual Research. I'll certainly post them if I find any more!
ReplyDelete(After I finish spinning around in giddy delight, of course. ) :)
Thanks!