A Blonde Woman

A Blonde Woman, also called Flora, is an oil painting by Palma Vecchio, dated today to around 1520, but undocumented before 1870, in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

This half-length depiction of a woman in loosened white chemise with a dark green mantle, holding some flowers, has been interpreted as an idealised representation of female beauty (sometimes in connection with the Roman goddess Flora), and as an actual portrait of either a gentlewoman or a courtesan.

[5] Richter (1910) thinks the picture representative of Palma's work during the previous decade, from 1510 to 1520, and allied in composition with the "beautiful series of portraits" now preserved in the Gallery of Vienna.

[10][11] The subject is a young woman of that "opulent voluptuous type" which was much admired in Venice at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was represented in works by Titian, Palma, Lorenzo Lotto, Bonifazio Veronese, Paris Bordone, and others.

[2][15] Certain particularities of the composition, such as the small posy of forget-me-nots, buttercups (or wall-flowers) and primroses held in the subject's right hand, and the erotic suggestion of the loosened chemise, have drawn comparison with Titian's earlier painting of the same name.

[20][21] Collier-Frick (1987) thinks the girl's long, loose and flowing tresses, typical of this type of picture, an allusion to the iconography of Mary Magdalene, patron saint of prostitutes, whose promiscuous past was symbolised by her luxurious hair;[22] while Mellencamp (1969) sees a classical reference to the hair-down nymphs.

[b][24][25] Burckhardt (1859) had earlier conjectured that Titian's Flora is shown in her "engagement" gown, but Mellencamp disputes this idea, citing the camicia (a blousy undergarment) and uncovered breast as improbable elements in a Renaissance marriage portrait.