Although painted in 1812 at the height of the neoclassical style, under the aegis of Napoleon, this picture is unusually soft edged, gentle and intimate. The possible explanation for this is that the sitter was reputedly the artist’s mistress. She was also the centre of a literary circle at her home in Lugo near Revenna which included Giacomo Leopardi and Ugo Foscolo, who described her as the ‘high priestess of words that swelled the soul’.

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