Paris BORDONE (1500-1571)

Portrait of a Lady

oil on panel

12,5 x 10 inches;
16,5 x 14 inches, inc. frame

Price: Price on Application

This richly toned poetic work has been inspected at first hand by the Paris Bordone scholar Andrea Donati, author of the catalogue raisonne on the artist, who has fully supported the attribution of this work to Bordone.

Paris Bordone was born in Treviso in 1500 but moved to Venice at an early age. He trained in Titian’s workshop until around 1516. According to Vasari, Bordone’s premature departure from the workshop accounts for the strained relations between the two artists, to the point where Titian managed to appropriate Bordone’s first commission for the altarpiece of the church of San Niccolò dei Frari in Venice. From the outset Bordone’s work reveals not only the marked influence of Titian but also that of Giorgione.

The particulars of Bordone’s artistic development remain unclear. Always consistent, however, was his delight in texture and detail, seen in luxurious fabrics, lustrous gems, and soft, supple skin. Around 1538 he worked at Fontainebleau, where his style absorbed the rhythmic grace, expressive artifice, and sensuality of the other Italian painters there. Bordone increasingly became identified with glossy portraiture, frequently illustrating the theme of problematic love. He often painted beautiful courtesans and erotic mythological and allegorical subjects, which appealed to his wealthy clients.

After meeting Lorenzo Lotto in Venice during the 1540s, Bordone imbued his portraits with a new intimacy. He travelled extensively in the 1540s and 1550s, working in Milan, Bavaria, Fontainebleau, and his native Treviso. Around 1560 Bordone again returned to Venice, then as one of its most renowned artists.