Raphael - La Fornarina

• Title: La Fornarina
• Artist: Raphael (1483-1520)
• Date: 1518
• Medium: Oil on wood panel
• Dimensions: 85 x 60 cm

The painting "Fornarina" is a portrait of Raphael’s inspirational muse and mistress- Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker, hence known as “Fornarina", the girl baker.

She is a beautiful woman, painted in a realistic way and not idealized in the way some earlier nudes had been.

The pose of her hands, one placed on her lap and the other more or less meaning to cover her breast, follows the classic model of the “Venus Pudica". She wears an engaging smile, has flush cheeks and is made more intriguing as she is looking slightly sideways from the viewer.