Figure of a woman (Léontine De Nittis)

Figure of a Woman (Léontine De Nittis), painted in 1880, is one of numerous portraits of De Nittis's wife Léontine, née Gruvelle, whom he married in Paris and who was a central presence in his life and art throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Léontine appears in many of his most important works as the unnamed or named subject of portraits, interior scenes, and garden studies, occupying a role in his oeuvre analogous to that of Camille Monet in Monet's work or Berthe Morisot as a recurring figure in Manet's compositions. The Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis in Barletta holds this portrait as part of its core collection of works illuminating the artist's personal and professional life across his entire career from the earliest Italian years through his celebrated Parisian maturity and his final highly productive Paris years.

The portrait demonstrates De Nittis's mature figure technique: fluid, confident handling capturing physical likeness and the quality of light falling across the figure. The palette employs warm, intimate tones associated with his domestic interior subjects, with particular attention to complexion.