A Girl with a Flower in Her Hair

Pietro Rotari

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the shoulders up, a young woman with pale skin, dark hair, and wearing a muted turquoise bodice over a white shirt, peers at us against an olive-green background in this vertical portrait painting. Her shoulders are angled slightly to our left, and she tips her head away from us, over her right shoulder, to our left. With her chin jutting a bit toward us, she looks at us from the corners of her heavy-lidded, dark green eyes under arched brows. She has a straight nose, and her smooth cheeks are flushed. The corners of her closed, peach-colored lips are barely pulled back in a faint smile. Her chestnut-brown hair is pulled back, and short curls frame her face in front of her ears. She wears a white, ruffled flower with a white bud and deep green leaves in her hair over her left temple, to our right. A dark rope or twisted fabric encircles her neck, and she gathers the long ends in her right hand, to our left, at her chest. One long curl wraps around the fabric, to our left. Her chest is smooth, and the backs of her fingers are touched with coral pink. Her low-cut, muted blue bodice is worn over a full-sleeved, white shirt pleated below the shoulders. She is lit from our left so casts a shadow against the olive-green wall to our right.