Unknown Author - Portrait of an Elderly Woman

Portraiture has always been a beloved subject for artists. Over the centuries, it has been interpreted in a variety of ways: in ancient portraiture, the sitter is often idealized to emphasize a position of power; in the Renaissance, facial features began to be more closely analyzed, characterizing people with their attributes; in the Baroque period, the subject was psychologically analyzed; and finally, in the 19th century, artists increasingly moved toward a representation of everyday reality. The painting we have the pleasure of admiring features an elderly woman against a monochrome background. The half-length portrait, in fact, is intended to emphasize the woman's strong individuality, respecting the figure and prioritizing her features. The dark bonnet concealing the woman's head, her clasped hands with lace sleeves holding a book, and the woman's eyes, which reveal a hint of sadness and weariness as she gazes at the viewer, all convey a painting attentive to reality and exploring the living conditions of the sitter portrayed.

Stylistically, the use of oil paint allows the artist to create a detailed figure, endowed with psychological characterization. The woman is depicted in a bare state; she carries no precious object except the volume she holds in her hands, yet the painter captures her in her simplicity and humility. The face covered by the dark cap highlights the woman's wrinkled features, which seek the gaze of the observer. The lines are defined and pictorially distinguished by a strong, drawn base that defines the woman's features, as well as her hands, delineated by chiaroscuro lines. The tones underlying the composition are treated in a naturalistic manner, enhancing the chiaroscuro that gives prominence to the figure while also emphasizing the dark, rustic quality of the portrait. The palette of browns, blacks, and the skin tone, which tends toward yellow/gray, all point to a representation that focuses on the human and psychological side the painter seeks to emphasize.

The artist, whose name we have not been able to identify, turns out to be a keen painter of the genre. Our investigations have led to the artist being placed within a context between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From a stylistic, pictorial and costume point of view, the old woman depicted fits perfectly into the portraiture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Just think of the great masters such as Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699 – 1779) where we find a similar selection of clothes, with the dark cap that outlines the face (Old Woman with a Muff); Théodore Géricault (1791 – 1824) who enjoyed portraying people suffering from mental disorders ( Insane Woman with the Monomania of Envy ) and John Opie (1761 – 1807) who shares an intimate representation ( The Artist's Mother ), conserved at the National Gallery. Iconographically, the figure of Opie meshes well with the figure of the woman holding a volume, and similarities can be seen in terms of form, with a painting style that pays attention to chiaroscuro and detailed drawing. It can be assumed that this is an early 19th-century artist active in a northern Italian area with close ties to transalpine culture.

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