 |
(Photo: Courtesy of National Gallery of Art at the Palazzo Barberini, Rome) |
Most of the great Raphaels in existence are in London for the National Gallery’s survey, but one very special painting is traveling alone. The masterpiece La Fornarina, thought to be a portrait of the painter’s mistress, began a three-city tour last week in the Frick’s Oval Room. Its half-clothed subject wears the painter’s name on a ribbon around her arm and a coy expression that’s been likened to the Mona Lisa’s smile. While La Fornarina herself has never been conclusively identified (some scholars think she’s a baker’s daughter from Siena named Margherita Luti), her effect on Raphael is well documented. In his Lives of the Artists, Vasari claims that Raphael “could not give his mind to his work because of his infatuation for his mistress”; he even insinuates that this mystery woman may have caused Raphael’s untimely death (attributed to excessive sexual exertion)—all of which would explain why the painting, as striking as it looks, is technically unfinished. (At the Frick through January 30.)
Email
Print
Eight Year-End Films Vie for Oscar Contention
Sondheim and Lansbury on a Lifetime in Theater
The Black Keys Release Their Hip-hop Debut 
How the BQE Became an Artistic Muse
On Great Jones Street, Shopping Is Art 
Classic Fare, Old-world Charm at Le Caprice
Buy a Brownstone for Less Than $1 Million
Fifty of the City's Tastiest Soups
Reasons to Love New York 2009
New York Politicians Refuse to Quit
A-Rod Has Babe Ruth in His Sights
McCain Yields to the Party's Pressure
