LA BELLA
Y'all know Tiziano's "La Bella"? Pretty lady with blonde hair and dark eye brows, in a muddled dress with square neckline? Yes?
It's been restored. Or rather cleaned. And it glows.
"La Bella" before and after restoration.
The painting was commissioned by Francesco Maria I della Rovere, duke of Urbino, in ca. 1536. It is sometimes thought the lady depicted was the duke's wife Eleonora Gonzaga. However, a letter recently discovered seems to contradict this, as the duke describes the portrait as "...retratto di quella Donna che ha la veste azurra" (portrait of that lady in blue dress). He would probably have named his wife if she was the one depicted. Also, Tiziano did paint his wife around the same time, and if there's a resemblance it's more the painter's way of modeling a face than actual similarity, I think.
It was Francesco's father Guidobaldo who commissioned the "Venus of Urbino" from Tiziano, and this seems to depict the same woman as the woman in blue dress. Some mean this shows Tiziano used the same model for many of his paintings, other means she was a courtesan which both father and son might have fancied. Others mean she was an ideal beauty, a typical face, Tiziano repeated in many of his works, and not an actual woman. It might also be a combination of the above theories.
1. "Venus of Urbino", ca. 1538, Tiziano (Uffizi, Florence)
2. "Woman in a Fur Coat", ca. 1537, Tiziano (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
3. A variation of number 2.
The painting was looted by Napoleon's troops along with numerous other Italian works in 1804. Some time after this the canvas of the painting was lined, the surface cleaned, and it was extensively repainted before being given a new layer of varnish to blend old and new surface. The recent restoration mainly worked with removing non-original varnish and painting, but it was also a nice opportunity to examine the underlayers of the painting.
In this context the conservators also examined the "Lady in a fur coat" from Vienna, and it appeared she originally had worn a dress similar to the blue one of "La Bella". Not only that, she originally positioned her arms in the same way as well. So it seems to be two variants of the same theme (the theme here being the lady).
Seeing the cleaned portrait was fantastic. The dress is so much more blue than I can explain! The Pitti museum had two similar blue damasks from the Bargello on display, which seemed to match in general pattern and colour, but it was hard to tell in the dim light. Also, the puffed sleeves (baragoni) seems to have slashes lined with either the red velvet of the lower sleeves, or some kind of fur. The same is repeated vertically in the bodice. And so much gold! Pretty, pretty. Here's some closeups from the glossy brochure I bought - again, hard to avoid the reflection, and these appears whiter online than in the brochure, but you get the basics:
