Portrait of Francesca Gommi Maratti
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
98.5 × 74.5 cm · framed: 123.2 × 99.4 × 10.3 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Accession Number
2018.1
Tags
About this artwork
In 1700 Carlo Maratti’s wife died, permitting him to marry his longtime mistress, Francesca Gommi, who began modeling for the artist in the 1670s and was the mother of his only child, Faustina. This painting was presumably painted shortly after the marriage as an homage from the artist to his new wife. To introduce an allegorical element into the composition, Maratti included a painting within a painting—in this case a drawing depicting Venus forging the love-darts of her adolescent son Cupid, s...