Bonza Sheila's Art Of Love Archive For June, 2007

This sweet and tender double portrait by Federico Barocci depicts a nobleman proffering a branch full of acorns to a young woman. The bearded male figure, dressed in a severe black costume, stands behind the woman pointing to the oak branch. The branch is not that of a live tree, but rather a crafted work of gilded bronze with a paper strip woven through its metal leaves. This cartello may have once been inscribed with a message, but no traces of it remain. The woman, to whose attention he brings this branch, looks up pensively from her reading. She wears an elegant gold and grey dress with a white ruff collar and cuffs and around her neck there is a lustrous strand of double pearls from which a gold and pearl medallion is suspended. The picture's format suggests the celebration of a conjugal relationship. The oak and acorns, an emblem long associated with the Della Rovere family of Urbino, indicate that at least one of the two sitters was a member of that family. However, the sitters and the event being commemorated have proven to be difficult to identify.

This is the Art Of Love painting for 3 June, 2007, presented by Bonza Sheila.

If you arrived at this page via a search engine: Welcome! You've arrived at our Picture Of The Day Archives. We invite you to visit our other sections, and the best place to start is Bonza Sheila's Table Of Contents. We have art, history, eCards, jigsaw puzzles, trivia, poems, quotations, and much more, all on the subjects of Love, Passion, and Romance.