ritratto di donna che regge l'effigie del defunto

Bernardino Licinio's Portrait of a Woman Holding an Image of the Deceased belongs to his production of memorial or votive portraits, where the living sitter holds or displays an effigy or portrait of a recently deceased family member. This unusual portrait type combined the devotional tradition of memorial imagery with the documentary function of portraiture, the living sitter preserving the image of the dead as an act of love and commemoration. Licinio's characteristically warm Venetian handling gives this emotionally complex image an appropriate tenderness, the painted face within the painting creating a meditation on memory, loss, and the relationship between the living and the dead.

Licinio handles the double portraiture with sensitivity, contrasting the living woman's warm flesh tones with the more static quality of the painted effigy she holds, demonstrating his skill as a portraitist of psychological nuance.