A Young Roman Woman

Sebastiano del Piombo's A Young Roman Woman from around 1512 belongs to the series of idealized female portraits he painted in his early Roman years, combining Venetian colorism and sensuality with the Roman tradition of the idealized female type. These portraits, which sometimes verge on the impersonal ideal of the 'donna' type, reflect the humanist culture of Roman courts that valued images of beautiful women as demonstrations of pictorial skill and as vehicles for philosophical meditation on beauty itself. Sebastiano's version carries the warm Venetian atmospheric modeling that distinguished his portraits from Raphael's more clarified Roman approach, giving even this conventional subject a quality of individual presence.

The warm, luminous flesh tones and rich costume colors demonstrate Sebastiano's Venetian training, while the monumental, sculptural form of the figure reflects his Roman experience.