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Social Sharing
Woman in Neapolitan Costume
ca. 1635
Artwork Viewer
This enigmatic picture belonged to a seventeenth-century viceroy of Naples, then a possession of the Spanish crown. It hung in his palace with a group of portrait-like paintings portraying women of different social classes, but the class affiliation of this subject— and, more important, the reason why she holds a chicken—is a mystery. Roosters were associated in early modern Europe with sexual jealousy and marital infidelity, but is this fowl so fraught with moral import? And what to make of his bearer? The shape of her costume suggests she is a Neapolitan peasant, but its sumptuous materials tell another story.
- Artist
- Massimo Stanzione
- Title
- Woman in Neapolitan Costume
- Date
- ca. 1635
- Place of Creation
- Napoli
- Object Type
- Painting
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 46 3/4 x 38 1/4 in. (118.7 x 97.155 cm) Framed: 57 1/2 x 49 in. (146.05 x 124.46 cm)
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase by Exchange with The Hispanic Society of America, Memorial Gift from Dr. T. Edward and Tullah Hanley, Bradford, Pennsylvannia, M. H. de Young Endowment Fund, M. H. de Young, Grover A. Magnin, Emily G. Potter in memory of Sarah M. Spooner, Albert C. Hooper, Andre J. Kahn-Wolf, Mr.and Mrs. E. John Magnin, Harold L. Zellerbach, Mildred Anna Williams Collection, and various donors, by exchange
- Accession Number
- 1997.32