The Virgin Reading

Vittore Carpaccio

Shown from the hips up against a landscape, a woman with pale skin, wearing a burgundy-red dress with marigold-orange sleeves and a sheer veil, sits facing our left in profile as she reads a small book in this vertical painting. She has a straight nose and peach-colored lips. Her blond hair is covered by a bone-white headdress tied over her forehead. The veil drapes over the headdress, and her head is encircled with a faint gold ring, creating a halo. Her dress has full sleeves and is cinched into pleats at the high waist. The neckline is edged with a band of nickel gray decorated with a pattern of circles and leafy forms. The book has a red cover with a red ribbon, and she holds one index finger between the pages. A low chalk-white stone wall beyond the woman suggests she sits on a porch or balcony. A swath of powder-blue fabric drapes over the ledge on which she sits near one knee. To our left, a sliver of a shoulder, elbow, and toes of one foot suggest a person with pale skin draped in midnight blue, leaning back against a maroon-red pillow with tassels at the corners, in front of the woman and to our left. Behind that second person, in the landscape beyond the balcony, barren branches of a tree twist against the sky while a second tree, to our right, has a leafy, green canopy. A mustard-yellow meadow lined with bushes leads to the water’s edge, where ice-blue water leads back to rolling hills along the horizon. A few white buildings and a tower are clustered on the opposite shore. White and gray clouds float against the pale blue sky.

Artwork details

Artist: Vittore Carpaccio
Date: c. 1505
Medium: oil on panel transferred to canvas
Dimensions: overall: 78 × 51 cm (30 11/16 × 20 1/16 in.) framed: 119.7 × 86.36 × 16.51 cm (47 1/8 × 34 × 6 1/2 in.)
Collection: CIS-R

Choose a frame

Select a frame to apply it to this artwork.

portrait artwork · 2658 × 4096 pixels

No frames are available for this image orientation.

Artwork total

Rs. 1077

Artwork cost: Rs. 1000

Qty

SIZE & CUSTOMIZATION

Print surface

Size / customization

Artwork size: 7" × 11"

Whole-inch standard sizes may trim a small amount from the edges. Artwork is never stretched.