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Cariani (Giovanni Busi)
Portrait of a Young Woman as Saint Agatha1516 - 1517On Display | NATIONAL GALLERY OF SCOTLAND
The palm frond and breasts in a dish identify the young woman as the virgin martyr St Agatha. According to legend, Agatha, a beautiful noblewoman who lived in Catania, Sicily, in the third-century, had taken a vow of chastity. Among her suitors was the Roman governor, who tried torturing her into submission by ordering her breasts to be cut off. She was saved miraculously and, as a paragon of courage and virtue, became a popular name-saint. Since this sensuous painting conforms in composition and character to contemporary Venetian portraiture it is possibly an idealised likeness of a young woman called Agatha.
Glossary Open
Composition
The arrangement of different elements in a work of art.
Idealisation
The representation of something as a model of perfection.
Details
- Accession no. NG 2494
- Medium Oil on canvas
- Size 69.00 x 58.00 cm
- Credit Purchased 1989
Cariani (Giovanni Busi) (Italian (Venetian), about 1485 - after 1547)
Cariani was one of a remarkable generation of painters producing colourful altarpieces, devotional pictures and portraits in early sixteenth-century Venice. He was born in Bergamo but moved with his family to Venice, where he probably trained in Giovanni Bellini's workshop, as a contemporary of Lotto and Titian. He returned to Bergamo for six years (1517-1523), during which he painted some of his finest works, including a large altarpiece for the church of S. Gottardo (now in the Brera, Milan). He was last recorded in Venice in 1547.
Glossary Open
Altarpiece
An artwork behind a church altar featuring religious scenes or imagery which was usually the focus for the celebration of the Mass.
Devotional art
Religious images used privately as a focus of prayer or an aid to meditation.