A sighting that places Nabokov in a Berlin picture
gallery, where the painting that inspired "La Veneziana" now hangs.( btw:I
haven't checked the present attribution with those in the books about
Nabokov and Painting)
A guide to the works of the major Italian Renaissance Painters
www.cavallinitoveronese.co.uk/general/view.../65
Sebastiano Luciano, known as del Piombo because of his appointment as
piombatore papale (keeper of the papal seal). [ ] After Raphael’s death in
1520, Sebastiano became the leading painter in Rome. He gradually lost his
Venetian style, adopting more monumental forms and a cooler range of
colour.[ ] Sebastiano’s late religious works were mainly for Spanish
patrons, and tend to be more personal and emotional; often painted on marble or
slate, they have a greyish tone.[ ]
Berlin. Gemäldegalerie.
Portrait of a Lady (‘Dorothea’). Wood, 78 x 61.
The sitter – richly
dressed in a gold-edged violet gown under a red velvet cloak trimmed in lynx –
holds a basket of flowers and quinces in her left hand and gestures towards her
heart with her right hand. The portrait dates from Sebastiano’s early years in
Rome, and is possibly the ‘woman in Roman costume’ seen by Vasari in the house
of Lucca Torrigiani. It is very similar in style to a portrait of a lady, dated
1512, in the Uffizi. Like the Uffizi portrait, it was at one time attributed to
Raphael and called the Fornarina. It was described as such when engraved by
Thomas Chambers in 1765, when it belonged to the Duke of Marlborough. It has
also been called Dorothea (‘St Dorothy’) because of the basket of flowers. It
remained at Blenheim Palace until 1885, when it was bought by Bode for the
Berlin Museum. The portrait inspired a short story, La Veneziana (1924), by
Vladimir Nabokov.