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Albrecht Durer
Painting: Portrait of a Venetian Woman
1506-07 Oil on poplar panel, 28,5 x 21,5 cm Staatliche Museen, Berlin The painting is poorly conserved. Almost all the final layers of colour are missing. The eyes have been restored. Because of the absence of the topmost layer of colour, the painting has acquired a soft chromatic shading. Even if we know that D?rer executed it during his second sojourn in Italy, probably in the autumn of 1506 after the Feast of the Rose Garlands, workmanship seems particularly "Venetian." The refinement of the artist is clearly absent in the sketching of the hair. Some object is discernible in the curl hanging to the left. Only a few traces of the hairnet have been preserved, and the sky blue of the background, which is inexplicably divided into two sections, is probably no longer its original shade. In its original state, however, this half-bust must have been in the Venetian style, because of her full, soft shapes, delicately modeled with a measured use of light. We must count this painting among the most beautiful works D?rer produced during his second sojourn in Venice. The various attempts to identify the model - for example, as Agnes D?rer, because of the letters AD on the trimming of the clothes or the woman with her head turned in the middle right of the Feast of the Rose Garlands - have not held up to criticism. The letters are probably the initials of a motto.Artist:D?RER, Albrecht Title: Portrait of a Venetian Woman Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait
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