Portrait of a lady, traditionally identified as a member of the Morosini family of St Formos, three-quarter-length, in a black gown and gold-trimmed white partlet, holding a pair of gloves

A native of Verona, Francesco Montemezzano most likely served as an apprentice in the workshop of Paolo Veronese. In 1570 he collaborated with Veronese’s son, Benedetto Caliari, on the decoration of the bishop’s palace in Treviso. Montemezzano was active from the mid-1570s onwards, primarily in the Veneto, and his works – especially his portraits – have often been confused with those of Veronese and his followers. The present work was once attributed to the mannerist painter Giovanni Antonio de’ Sacchis, better known as il Pordenone.

The lady represented here was traditionally thought to have belonged to the Morosini family, a noble Venetian family that counted doges, admirals and cardinals amongst its members. The style of both the sitter’s dress and her hair, scraped back with curls framing the face, are datable to the last quarter of the sixteenth century and can be compared to those of the lady in Montemezzano’s portrait in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. The loose handling of the hair, the creamy texture of her ruff and pearls, and the Veronese-like quality of her face are all characteristic of Montemezzano, and can be compared to his Portrait of a Woman with a Squirrel in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The picture’s echoes of Veronese are entirely consistent with known portraits by Montemezzano, such as that in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, which was formerly attributed to Veronese himself.

The portrait was purchased from the Morosini family by George Augustus Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, whose collection consisted predominantly of Venetian paintings. These included large numbers of works by or given to Tintoretto, Veronese, Pietro Longhi, Giambattista Tiepolo, Canaletto and Francesco Guardi, many of which had been acquired in the Veneto.