The portrait is arresting not only for its remarkable size, but also because of the imposing presence of the young woman leaning on a balustrade, whose figure is placed close to the front of the picture plane. Great attention is paid to every element of her dress, which is typical of a Northern Italian Renaissance gentlewoman: cuffed gloves on the parapet, gathered white chemise edged in red picot, magnificent deep red and gold gown with voluminous ruched sleeves. Her hairstyle is also entirely typical; known as a capigliara, it consists of a framework with ribbons and locks of false hair placed at the back of the head over her own hair, which is scraped back and neatly parted in the centre. Two charming curls soften the severe line at her forehead. Because of her spectacular garb, we do not at first notice the young woman’s melancholy expression as she looks into the distance with languishing eyes, her attention drawn away from the viewer in front of her.[1]

The painting was discovered by Giovanni Morelli, possibly in July 1871 in the Murari collection in Verona.[2] He must have proposed Paolo Cavazzola as the artist; although this was first put in writing by Gustavo Frizzoni in his description of the Morelli collection at the time of the bequest to the Accademia Carrara in 1891. Since then there has been unanimous agreement with the attribution, though with occasional distinctions that remind us that some gaps remain in reconstructing the career of Cavazzola. In his monograph on the artist, Christian Hornig confirms the authorship and argues for a dating around 1515[3]—a little earlier than Cavazzola’s Portrait of a gentleman, [4] which is dated 1518. But Federico Zeri and Francesco Rossi move the completion of this painting to a later date that brings it close to the large altarpiece from the San Francesco chapel in the church of San Bernardino, Verona,[5] signed and dated by Cavazzola in the year of his premature death, 1522.[6]

After the initial conservatism of the painter’s career, it is not easy to understand the reasons behind his very substantial stylistic leap to the lively Scenes of the Passion polyptych, painted in 1517 for the Chapel of the Compagnia della Croce in the church of San Bernardino, Verona.[7] This group shows a mature approach, with the episodes engagingly linked and featuring perceptive portraits of real people in the guise of different saints. For the Bergamo portrait a decisive factor is its similarity, evident in the solemn but slightly somnolent monumentality, with Nicola Giolfino’s frescoes, Allegories of liberal arts, originally in the San Nicolò monastery in Verona.[8] Their close resemblances—the fullness of the faces, a certain awkwardness in the restrained gestures, attention paid to clothing and accessories—suggest that the two Veronese painters may have worked together for a time, probably around 1515 or shortly thereafter.

Giovanni Valagussa

[1]See Francesco Rossi, Ritratti lombardi e veneti dalla Accademia Carrara, Milan: Skira, 1996, p. 26; and Giovanni Valagussa, cat. 20, in Patrick Ramade and Giovanni Valagussa, Botticelli, Bellini, Guardi...Chefs d’oeuvres de l’Accademia Carrara de Bergame, Caen: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, 2010, pp. 72–73.

[2]Jaynie Anderson, Collecting connoisseurship and the art market in Risorgimento Italy. Giovanni Morelli’s letters to Giovanni Melli and Pietro Zavaritt (1866–1872), Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1999, p. 128 note 90.

[3]Christian Hornig, Cavazzola, Munich: W. Fink, 1976, pp. 69, 74, 99.

[4]Gemäldegalerie, Dresden.

[5]Castelvecchio Museum, Verona.

[6]Federico Zeri and Francesco Rossi, La raccolta Morelli nell’Accademia Carrara, Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 1986, pp. 71–72.

[7]Castelvecchio Museum, Verona.

[8]Castelvecchio Museum, Verona.