c.1514, 33"*25", Oil on canvas
Raphael had shown exceptional skill in rendering
portraits from early in his career. As his painting style evolved into
the majestic statements of the first two stanze, a similar
monumentalization took place in his portraiture. In the Portait of
Baldassare Castiglione and in La Donna Velato (or The
Woman with a Veil), both of nearly equal dimensions, he has
presented ideal examples of a male and female. The model for the
Velata was likely identical with the one used for Mary in The
Sistine Madonna, and her image reoccurs in several other works of
this period. Furthermore, the artistic conception is related to The
Sistine Madonna, especially in the quality of the expression and in
the pictorial treatment of the head. The tight modeling of his earlier
portraits, including those done in Rome, has given way to a more simplified
and generalized approach, one based upon a greater inherent understanding
of the forms rather than intensified detailed study. Thus Raphael approaches
a solution collateral to that of the great Venetians Giorgione and Titian. His
superior control over drawing, however, is never entirely subordinated to
painterly qualities. The massive sleeve of the sitter's dress is set on the
front plane, where it becomes a nearly independent motive as a passage of
pure still-life painting and is another connection to Venetian practice.
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