BEF 2011/25 – The Bill [Hungary]

A Google image search of Palma Vecchio soon reveals to the uninitiated the Venetian painter’s preoccupation: many of his works are of golden-haired women, solid of build, broad-shouldered and pale, air of the coquette, negligent dressers.  Time and again his work shows this figure with slight variations in posture or dress, sometimes baring a nipple, sometimes two, often a hand touching – not covering – the breast.  The neck and gentle slope down to the breasts occupy the centre of many of the paintings.  One in particular is striking: “A Portrait of the Young Bride as Flora,” depicting Vecchio’s broad archetype, blonde head turned to expose light to the right side of her head and throat and falling across her chest, beneath which there hangs in a white chemise a breast, like a moon from behind a cloud, from which all the light radiates.  In her right hand Flora, Roman fertility goddess, holds a small bouquet of coloured clover and leaves, and her left hand is holding a green mantle, whether to cover her nakedness or reveal more is not certain.  Her eyes are opened but not widely and her lips curve slightly upward above an unassuming chin, her right ear is exposed.  She is an open figure: ear, eyes, neck, breast: she is willing and waiting, a portrait of anticipation.