Portrait of a Noblewoman

In Bologna in the 1580s, a noble bride's trousseau was a matter of careful record. Families listed every gown, chain and jewel in their account books and diaries, and it is those papers that have let scholars read this portrait. The young woman has never been securely identified, and the museum offers the name Livia de' Medici Bandini only with a question mark. What the records do show is that her clothes and gems match, item for item, what a high-born Bolognese bride brought to her marriage. Brides there wore red, and the dog stood for faithfulness in marriage. Hanging from her belt is the oddest piece of the outfit, the pelt of a marten, a slender relative of the mink, with its head and paws decorated with jewels. Furs like this turn up again and again in the family records of the period as a sign of wealth. Lavinia Fontana painted her around 1589 against a plain dark ground, so that nothing competes with the fabric and the stones.