Profile portrait of a lady
(c. 1465-1475)

• NORTHERN ITALY

The reframing of Profile portrait of a lady (c.1475) coincided with the cleaning and restoration of the painting in 2006-7.  The panel  and painting had been extended on the left and top edges and these extensions were removed in the treatment.  This reduction in width (formerly exposed as part of the image within the frame) necessitated a new frame.  The extended height had been tucked behind an enlarged rebate in the former frame.

The former framing of the painting (see above image) used an early 16th century, Venetian style, pastiglia frame which had been reworked in 1981.  Both stylistically and in format the frame was not appropriate to the painting.
Previously, in the 1950's, this frame was fitted into an additional box frame and displayed with glazing. It appears in a photograph of former director Daryl Lindsay with the framed painting on the wall.

A new frame, a copy of the original frame on Alesso Baldovinetti's Profile portrait of a Lady in yellow, in the National Gallery London, was made in London in 2006 and fitted to the painting on completion of the treatment.

The Venetian frame that had been fitted to this painting and the similar frame formerly fitted to Hans Memling's The man of sorrows in the arms of the Virgin (1335-3) are both interesting frames and though compromised by resurfacing, are worthy of examination, restoration and reuse.

Carved wooden frame. Surface gilded and toned.