(Treviso 1500–1571 Venice)
Young lady with a mirror and a female servant,
oil on canvas, 87 x 72 cm, framed

Provenance:
Visconti Borromeo, Milan (as Titian);
Litta Visconti Arese, Milan (until 1856);
William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley and Viscount Ednam (1817–1885), Dudley Castle, Stafford;
William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley and Viscount Ednam (1867–1932);
his sale Christie’s, London, 19 July 1929, lot 42;
Private collection, Austria

Literature:
Raccolta delle migliori dipinture che si conservano nelle private gallerie milanesi / disegnate ed incise da Gaetano Zanconi \1 ; brevemente descritte da Gio. Palamede Carpani e pubblicate da Carlo Aliprandi, Milan 1813, plate XIII);
O. Mündler, The Travel Diaries [1855–1858] 1985, p. 102;
J. Grabski, Il quadro alchimistico di Angelo Caroselli nella Fondazione Roberto Longhi a Firenze, in: Paragone 341, 1978, p. 7, plate 4b.1978 (as in the collection of the Earls Spencer, Althorp);
A. Morandotti, Il collezionismo in Lombardia. Studi e ricerche tra ‘600 e ‘800, Milan 2008, p. 94-95, 106-107, 248

We are grateful to Giorgio Fossaluzza for confirming the attribution on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph and for his help in cataloguing the present painting.
Bernard Aikema has independently confirmed the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

The work has a well-documented Milanese provenance. Until the end of the 18th century it belonged to the Visconti Borromeo Collection, with an attribution to Titian. This traditional attribution is recorded by the inscription on an aquatint etching executed by Gaetano Zancon and published in 1813 when the painting was then part of Antonio Litta Visconti Arese’s collection (see Raccolta delle migliori dipinture che si conservano nelle private gallerie milanesi / disegnate ed incise da Gaetano Zanconi \1 ; brevemente descritte da Gio. Palamede Carpani e pubblicate da Carlo Aliprandi, Milan 1813, plate XIII). The attribution to Paris Bordon is documented by Otto Mündler, who was able to examine this work in 1856 (see O. Mündler, The Travel Diaries [1855-1858] 1985, p. 102).

The present painting subsequently entered the collection of the Earls of Dudley and was sold at Christie’s in London in 1929. In 1930, it was with Artaria in Vienna, with the attribution to Paris Bordon, (this is recorded on the back of the archive photograph in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, George Martin Richter Archive, Vol. No. 172, Folder No. V, Sheet No. 4).

Józef Grabski published the painting in 1978, mistakenly locating it in the collection of the Earls Spencer at Althorp (see J. Grabski, Il quadro alchimistico di Angelo Caroselli nella Fondazione Roberto Longhi a Firenze, in: Paragone 341, 1978, p. 7, plate 4b.1978). Grabski was especially interested in the iconography of the present work and linked it to the representation of Prudence and, more specifically, the vanitas motif to which the mirror alludes.

A beautiful young lady with an exposed breast looks at herself in a mirror, held by an older woman, and holds a comb in her left hand. She probably represents a young bride. For this reason, her exposed breast may allude to a wedding ritual that was fashionable in Venice in early 16th century and included this gesture with the positive meaning of virtue. The subject echoes a painting from the collection of the Widmann family in Venice, as mentioned by Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 (Le Maraviglie dell’Arte, 1648, ed. von Hadeln, Berlin 1914, I, p. 234), and preserved at Palazzo Widmann in Venice: “Una femmina col seno scoperto che si mira in uno specchio tenutole da una vecchia con una bella giovane accanto” [a woman with an exposed breast beholding herself in a mirror that is held before her by an old woman with a beautiful girl on her side], currently conserved at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The high esteem in which the present composition was held in the past is confirmed by the fact that a copy exists in the Borromeo Collection on the Isola Bella (see Morandotti 2008, p. 108). This painting belongs to Paris Bordon’s mature phase at the end of the 1550s. The studied composition is based on contrasts that is typical of his most sophisticated mannerism, and is accentuated by a background with architectural elements. Colour is used in order to create soft effects, as is visible in the protagonist’s pink lacquered robes. In contrast the figure’s complexion is executed in a typical solid colour resembling enamel, and yet it is not devoid of tonal effects on the surface.

On the grounds of the suggested dating of the present composition, as well as high quality, the present painting offers new evidence in favour of the theory of Paris Bordon’s journey to Fontainebleau between 1559 and 1561, where he worked for Francis II, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, according to the interpretation of Giorgio Vasari’s testimony (1568). In this regard, it is especially worth noting that the famous painting depicting Jupiter and Io, which was executed for the Cardinal of Lorraine (now in Göteborg, Könstmuseum), is stylistically very close to the Young lady with a mirror and a female servant.

Technical Examination

A technical report by Gianluca Poldi, to whom we are grateful, is available for the present painting (please refer to the department).

Examination of the present painting with IR reflectography shows that some changes occur to the composition in the arms of the women, in the hands, particularly in the servant’s ones and in the servant’s face. Some thin lines of underdrawing can be detected in areas along the borders of the figures and details, but corrections suggest that the painter needed to modify proportions. Reflectance spectroscopy analyses (vis-RS), performed on about 30 selected colours of the painting, allowed to detect the pigments used. The blue dress of the servant is painted with an intense azurite to create the light areas and with a mixture of this pigment and a carmine-type red lake for the shadows, which are actually almost black. The good quality and peculiar tone of this kind of azurite is typically found in paintings by Paris Bordon.

A verdigris, not substantially altered, constitutes the curtain behind the woman. The typical flesh tones of Bordon can be appreciated in the young woman, with her pale tone in lights varying to a reddish-pink (up to strong dark grey in the shadows). This effect is due to the addition of vermilion and also ochre to the lead white using the brush to give a compact structure with a porcelain-like result. In the servant’s complexion, yellow and brown ochre are widely used, together with vermilion. Another characteristic of Bordon’s style, in this period, is the way he realized folds, with quite long brushstrokes, frequent use of glazes, undulating paths of the brush, frequently adding black pigment to sustain shadows in the underlayers.

The technical characteristics link the painting to Venetian tradition of 16th century, and particularly to Paris Bordon.

additional pictures:
Gaetano Zancon, in Raccolta delle migliori dipinture..., 1813, plate XIII