Portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her Daughter Deidamia

Iseppo da Porto married Livia Thiene in 1545, and soon afterwards he hired a local architect named Andrea Palladio, still early in his career, to build the family a palace in Vicenza. Veronese was about 24 and had not yet moved to Venice when he painted the couple for that house around 1552, in two canvases made to face each other across a room. The husband stands with their son. Livia stands with Deidamia, one hand resting on the girl's shoulder, both of them at life size. The gold and enamel jewel Livia wears is almost the twin of a surviving piece in the Walters collection in Baltimore. The two halves of the commission went separate ways on the art market, Henry Walters bought the mother and daughter in 1921, and the father and son are now in Florence.