Turkish Slave

The name is a mistake that stuck. For a long time people thought the young woman wore a turban and called her a Turkish slave, but the headdress is a balzo, a padded, gilded band that fashionable women in northern Italy wound around their hair in the 1530s. Parmigianino painted her in Parma around 1533, a real and clearly well-born sitter whose name is lost, though some have wondered whether she is the poet Veronica Gambara, who ruled the nearby town of Correggio. Look at the medallion pinned to the balzo and you find a tiny winged horse, Pegasus, perhaps a hint about poetry or a family badge. She holds a fan of feathers and turns to meet your eye with the faint beginning of a smile.