劳拉·达·波拉肖像

We know unusually much about this portrait because Lorenzo Lotto wrote it down. In April 1543 a Treviso nobleman named Febo da Brescia commissioned him to paint a pair of pictures, himself and his young wife, Laura da Pola. Lotto kept careful account books, and against this commission he noted the fee, 30 ducats, along with an unusual extra, a pair of live peacocks. Laura is shown in her twenties, richly dressed against a dark ground with a feather fan in her hand. The two portraits hung together as a couple for centuries and were bought as a pair by the Brera in 1859, so husband and wife are still side by side. Lotto was often short of money himself, which may be why he set down every ducat so precisely.