Flora c.1530
Oil on panel | 56.1 x 40.1 x 1.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405474
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Flora was the Roman goddess of spring and of gardens, but in a less innocent form was also the roman courtesan deified by the Senate in the version of the legend by Lactantius which is recirculated by Boccaccio. The ‘Flora’ seen here is one of Luini’s most idealized figures, suggesting that it is strictly a representation of the goddess, rather than a disguised portrait of a contemporary courtesan common in Venetian Flora-paintings. Shown at half-length, facing half to the left and smiling, the goddess is wearing a transparent chemise with a striped robe over her left shoulder and is holding flowers in both hands. There is a coarser variant of the painting, with the figure turned to our right, in the Borghese Gallery, Rome.
Provenance
In the collection of Charles I; recorded in the Little Room between the Breakfast Chamber and the Long Gallery at Whitehall in 1639 (no 21) as Leonardo da Vinci; recovered at the Restoration and listed in the Passage between the Green Room and the Closet at Whitehall in 1666 (no 274)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
56.1 x 40.1 x 1.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
56.1 x 38.1 cm (support (etc), excluding additions)
69.4 x 53.5 x 4.4 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Woman with flowers, previously entitled