[2] An alternative view sees the work not as a portrait of a specific woman, but rather as Raphael's interpretation of a belle donne genre and a depiction of a courtesan.

She wears a blue and yellow turban over her dark hair; a thicker red cloth covers her legs and genital region.

[2] X-ray analyses have shown that in the background was originally a Leonardesque-style landscape in place of the myrtle bush, which was sacred to Venus, goddess of love and passion.

"La Fornarina (The Portrait of a Young Woman) is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1519.

It is an oil-on-panel with 86 x 58 cm dimensions, located in Room IX of the Borghese Gallery.In Olimpia Aldobrandini's two inventories (1626 and 1682), the art work is attributed to Raphael.

Joanna Woods-Marsden has chosen to view the painting through the belle donne theme, describing it as a representation of idealistic beauty.

During the Renaissance, beauty was equated to nakedness and the nude, for if a woman was naked she was captivating and sexually exciting to the artist and ultimately, the viewer.

[7] Raphael makes the woman more risqué by enlarging her breasts, hardening her nipples, and giving her a possible flirty yet shy glance towards the viewer.

[3] Another interpretation of the woman's identity assumes her to be Raphael's lover named Margherita; the figure's father was a baker and thus earned her the nickname of La Fornarina.

The mass extends from the woman's armpit medially along the lower half of her breast, and is seen to reach its apex at the spot just above her right index finger.

Segal states that La Fornarina was more fond of black cats than children, which at the time was not common because the main goal of most was to get married and procreate.

Jacob Burckhardt analyzes witch craft as neither good or evil,[4] the women who practiced magic did so to support themselves by providing potions and spells for her patrons' desires.

[10] The physical features of Fornarina are completely unlike other painted women of the time; she was more healthy-looking with ample body parts (full lips, large breasts, wide hips, etc).

Courtesans were widely used in European culture beginning during the Renaissance; their existence and their depiction was a way for people to explore sexual relationships based on the ideals of classical writings on the subject.