Raphael: The Woman with the Veil

This one work exhibition brings one of the most important and celebrated paintings of the Italian Renaissance, Raphael: The Woman with the Veil (La Donna Velata), to Milwaukee for the first time. Rarely lent from the Pitti Palace in Florence, this irresistibly beautiful portrait was once considered the most famous painting in the world. Completed around 1516, four years before Raphael died at age 37, the painting has had a profound influence on artists and writers over the centuries.

Responding to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Raphael developed in this portrait his own idea of female beauty and deportment. Art historians have variously identified this beautiful woman as a patron’s bride and as the artist’s lover and muse; she appears as a model in many of Raphael’s most important works.

This exhibition is made possible by the Foundation for Italian Art & Culture in New York and is organized by the Portland Art Museum.