LOTTO, Lorenzo
(b. ca. 1480, Venezia, d. 1556, Loreto)

Allegory of Chastity ("Maiden's Dream")

c. 1506
Oil on panel, 43 x 34 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

A young woman is seated on a grassy bank beside a pool of water. In the sky above her, a winged putto scatters small white flowers in her lap. In the lower right corner, a satyr reclines, pouring wine from a jar into his mouth, while opposite him a female satyr observes the scene. Behind a grove of trees the sun rises or sets over a distant mountain range.

Like Lotto's other Allegory, which served as a cover for his portrait of Bishop Bernardo de' Rossi, this panel may once have performed an analogous function. It is assumed by some scholars that probably it was the cover for the Portrait of a Lady in Dijon.