Allegory of Chastity

Lorenzo Lotto

National Gallery of Art

A baby-like winged putto flies above and drops a stream of white flowers onto a woman who sits leaning against a cut tree trunk this vertical landscape painting. There are also two satyrs, who have the upper bodies and heads of people and the legs of goats. The woman and child have pale skin, and the satyrs have tan-colored skin. The central woman’s body is angled to our right, and her legs stretch in front of her on the grassy ground. She props her blond head against the hand supported by the tree trunk and looks to our right in profile. She has a round face, small nose, pursed lips, and a double chin. She wears a flowing white gown, and a flax-yellow cloak wraps around her shoulders and covers her lap. Above the woman, the putto has brown hair and wings, and wears a brown tunic that only covers the chest. The thin cloud on which the putto kneels is strewn with the same flowers being dropped down onto the woman. More flowers are gathered in the cloth of the putto's tunic, used like a basket. Lit from below, the putto looks down at the woman. The blond, female satyr looks and smiles at the woman from behind a spindly tree trunk to our left. More trees create groves on both sides of the scene. A male satyr with a dark goatee and hair leans against a low rock to face our right in profile in the bottom right corner of the composition. He holds up and looks at a small white urn. A stream runs from the rocky area in the lower right back to our left, and then zigzags through low moss-green and harvest-yellow hills. A band of smoky-gray mountains encloses the scene in the deep distance along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition. The sky is streaked with peach and pale yellow immediately over the mountains and deepens to ultramarine blue along the top edge.