Young Woman with Unicorn
Encyclopedia
Portrait of Young Woman with Unicorn is a painting, oil on canvas applied to wood, by Raphael
, c. 1506. It is in the Galleria Borghese
in Rome
.
The portrait appears to have been influenced by the Mona Lisa
, painted by Leonardo between 1503 and 1506 . The work was of uncertain attribution until recent times. In the 1760 inventory of the Gallery, the subject of the painting was identified as Saint Catherine of Alexandria and attributed to Perugino. A restoration of the painting in 1934-36 confirmed art historian Roberto Longhi's hypothesis that the work was by Raphael, and the removal of heavy repainting revealed the unicorn
, traditionally a symbol of purity in medieval romance, in place of a Saint Catherine's wheel . Later restoration work on the painting in 1959 revealed the image of a dog, even earlier than the unicorn, also a symbol of chastity and conjugal fidelity. The identity of the young woman, and the client for whom the work was done, are both unknown .
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
, c. 1506. It is in the Galleria Borghese
Galleria Borghese
The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
The portrait appears to have been influenced by the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
, painted by Leonardo between 1503 and 1506 . The work was of uncertain attribution until recent times. In the 1760 inventory of the Gallery, the subject of the painting was identified as Saint Catherine of Alexandria and attributed to Perugino. A restoration of the painting in 1934-36 confirmed art historian Roberto Longhi's hypothesis that the work was by Raphael, and the removal of heavy repainting revealed the unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...
, traditionally a symbol of purity in medieval romance, in place of a Saint Catherine's wheel . Later restoration work on the painting in 1959 revealed the image of a dog, even earlier than the unicorn, also a symbol of chastity and conjugal fidelity. The identity of the young woman, and the client for whom the work was done, are both unknown .