Portrait of a Young Woman

We do not know who she is. This portrait of a young woman was painted around 1570, and no record survives to give her name, her family, or the reason Barocci painted her. What it does show is the manner that made him sought after: the soft, warm handling of the face, the gentle turn of the head, the careful light falling on skin and cloth. Portraits are only a small part of what survives from him, most of which is religious painting made for churches and for the court of Urbino. That makes a private likeness like this one relatively rare among his pictures.