Portrait of a Lady

Francesco Salviati

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the waist up, a young woman with pale, faintly yellow-tinged skin and flushed cheeks looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she gazes out from the corners of her brown eyes. She has a long nose, and her pale red lips are closed. Short strands of her dark brown hair curl onto her forehead, and the rest of her hair is covered by a net-like gold headdress fringed with pearls. More pearls dangle from a gold earring hanging from the ear we can see. A necklace with small black gems encircles her neck. Her brown garment is lined with black-dotted white fur at the neck and down the open front. Under it, her raspberry-pink, long-sleeved dress is lined with gold trim. A long, thick gold chain lies between the fingers of her right hand, closer to us, and a gold and jewel medallion dangles from the bottom. he is lit from our right against a dark brown background.