Raphael's Portrait of a Young Woman,
also known as La Fornarina or the baker woman, has returned home
to Rome's Palazzo Barberini National Art Gallery after featuring
highly in a delayed landmark show at London's National Gallery
devoted to the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance master's
death on Good Friday 1520.
The British gallery had loaned in its place The Lady with the
Squirrel, a masterpiece by Handis Holbein, which will now return
to London.
The exchange is part of Barberini Gallery Director Flaminia
Gennari Santori,'s strategy of valorising international
collaboration, the Roman museum said.
Raphael's masterpiece was made between 1518 and 1519. It is now
back in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo
Barberini Corsini, Rome, just off Piazza Barberini.
It is probable that the picture was in the painter's studio at
his death in 1520, and that it was modified and then sold by his
assistant Giulio Romano.
The woman is traditionally identified with the fornarina (baker)
Margherita Luti, Raphael's Roman lover who refused to marry him,
though this has been questioned.
Alternatively, it can be argued that this is not a portrait of a
specific woman, but rather Raphael's interpretation of the belle
donne theme and a depiction of a courtesan.
Still, another interpretation of who the model is identifies the
figure as a witch.
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