RAFFAELLO Sanzio
(b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma)

Portrait of a Young Woman

c. 1520
Oil on wood, 60 x 44 cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg

This portrait of a woman, executed with an astonishing certainty and virtuosity, was painted in collaboration between Raphael and Giulio Romano. Regarding the identity of the sitter, it was assumed that she is La Fornarina, Margherita Luti, a Sienese woman whom Raphael loved. However, this type of woman constituted the ideal of beauty of Giulio Romano: we find her in several paintings by Giulio, for example in the Madonna and Child in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome.