Portrait of Laura Dianti


Portrait of Laura Dianti is a c. 1520–25 painting by Titian, now held in the H. Kisters Collection at Kreuzlingen. It is signed "TICI/ANVS F." and depicts Laura Dianti, lover and later wife of Alfonso I d'Este.
Titian painted several portraits of Dianti, perhaps including the Woman with a Mirror, now at the Louvre. In this one, she wears a sumptuous blue dress, jewellery and a diadem. Her right arm runs down the side of her body while her left hand rests on the shoulder of an African page boy.

History

mentions a portrait of Dianti, which was engraved by E. Sadler. Ridolfi, in 1648, described the work based on the engraving. There are several copies and versions of the painting, one of which was sent in 1599 from Cesare d'Este to Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague. In 1649, it was in the collection of Christina of Sweden, who brought it to Rome in 1654. It then passed into the collections of Decio Azzolino, then of prince Odescalchi, then Philip of Orleans. In 1800, it was in an English collection and in 1876, it was in the Cook collection before arriving in the Kisters collection in Kreuzlingen.
Modern criticism previously held the work to be an autograph copy of a lost original, like the versions at the Galleria Estense in Modena, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, the Galleria Borghese in Rome and several private collections. After a restoration in America, which revealed the signature on the sleeve, it is again thought to be the original work. The work was paired with a portrait of Alfonso I d'Este, which is now lost but of which several copies survive, the best perhaps being that at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.