Portrait of Doña Isabel de Requesens y Enríquez de Cardona-Anglesola

A woman in deep red velvet meets our eyes, her hair loose, her hat shaped like a halo. Made as a gift for the King of France, this portrait was painted by Raphael's workshop, and for centuries nobody was sure who she was.

The story behind the painting

In 1518 Cardinal Bibbiena, on behalf of Pope Leo X, commissioned from Raphael a portrait of the vicereine of Naples for Francis I of France, who collected portraits of beautiful women. The writer Brantome took her to be Giovanna d'Aragona, but a 1997 study showed she was Isabel de Requesens, wife of Ramon de Cardona, viceroy of Naples from 1509 to 1522. According to Vasari, Raphael sent his young assistant Giulio Romano to Naples to paint it, except for the face, which Raphael kept for himself; a document in Raphael's hand confirms Giulio's work.

What to look for

She sits turned to our left in a deep red velvet dress trimmed with gold, its slashed sleeves showing the cream fabric of her chemise. One hand fingers the fur around her shoulders, the other rests on her knee. Behind her, a woman leans on the railing of a loggia above a garden, and the vault quotes Raphael's own Cupid and Psyche ceiling at the Villa Farnesina. Her loose hair, the red of her clothes, the colour of love for Petrarch, and her direct gaze are sensuous details. Her knees, visibly parted, and her hands not held chastely together, were new in portraiture.

Meaning and intent

Who painted what is still debated. Wikipedia says the work is now usually taken to be by Giulio Romano from a sketch by Raphael, then altered by Raphael, while Luitpold Dussler gave it entirely to Giulio. With a related portrait of Isabella of Aragon, it is called one of Raphael's Giocondae, for their nods to Leonardo's Mona Lisa, already in Francis I's collection. Both have carved cats that look like lions at the right, a pun on Leonardo's name. Some have suggested the beauty shown is as much a formula as a likeness, since both candidate sitters were famous beauties.

Legacy

Vasari says a copy wholly by Giulio Romano went to the king with the original, and Brantome saw one version in the king's apartments at Fontainebleau and one in the queen's. Francesco Primaticcio restored the painting in the mid-sixteenth century, and it was moved from wood to canvas then or in the eighteenth century. Manet probably had it in mind when he painted his wife Suzanne in The Reading. Wikipedia places it today at the Louvre in Lens; Wikidata lists the Louvre's Department of Paintings and a size of 120 by 95 cm.