Irene di Spilimbergo

Assistant of Titian, possibly begun by Gian Paolo Pace

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman wearing a muted red gown and shimmering coat stands against a stone column in front of a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. Her body angles to our left, and she looks off in that direction with gray eyes under curved brows. She has a round face with a slightly snub nose, flushed cheeks, double chin, and her thin lips are closed. Her strawberry blond hair is pulled back under a band wrapped with pearls. Her copper-red dress has a square neckline lined with lace, and a gold and pearl belt is looped around her waist as a long strand lies down the front of her skirt and off the bottom edge of the canvas. The voluminous coat she wears has a high, flaring collar lined with lace or patterned with black lines against white. The pale, almost iridescent golden-red fabric of the coat has a sheen, suggesting satin or silk, and it is decorated down the front, over the shoulders, and down the sleeves with a geometric design in copper red. The cuffs of the coat are lined with lace, and the woman wears a gold and silver earring in the ear we see and a strand of white pearls around her neck. The woman drapes her left arm, to our right, over the chest-high base of the column, and holds a ring of leaves in that hand. The other hand is by her side as she holds the coat belt to curve like a swag across her body. A pair of palm fronds feather out against the column that fills the right half of the background. A deep landscape on the left half has rolling hills, trees, and mountains reaching back to the horizon under a sky with puffy white clouds. A white unicorn lies on one hill and a dog chases an animal farther back. Beyond that, a person walking along a path back may carry a sack. The tonalities of the whole painting are shaded yellow, and some areas of the woman’s face and neck are in-painted in slightly different shades of pale peach. An inscription carved into the base of the column reads, “SI FATA TVLISSENT.”