Portrait of Paola Priuli 1528

Palma Vecchio painted this portrait of Paola Priuli in Venice sometime in the early 16th century. Venetian portraits of the period were usually commissioned by the upper classes to project an image of wealth and status. Palma, like other artists, would likely have had to negotiate his patron's expectations about how they wanted to be seen. In this image, Paola's sumptuous dress is a statement about her family’s ability to purchase luxury goods. Her gentle gaze and relaxed posture suggest the humanistic values that were becoming important to Renaissance elites. The portrait is a piece of social communication, a way for the sitter and the artist to work together to project a carefully constructed identity. Historical research allows us to understand the subtle negotiations that went into the creation of such images, to see how artists and patrons used visual codes to reflect the changing social and political values of their time.