An example of the male gaze

Special Loan: Parmigianino's Antea: A Beautiful Artifice

On loan from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, now on display for the first time in twenty years in the U.S. at the Frick, New york.
A masterpiece of Italian Renaissance female portraiture, little is known about the painting.
While there is no known evidence definitively linking the woman Parmigianino depicted to a specific person, her identity has been the cause of speculation for centuries.
first identified as “Antea” ,the name of a famous sixteenth-century Roman courtesan.
She has been identified alternatively as the daughter or servant of the artist; a member of an aristocratic northern Italian family; and a noble bride. It is most likely, however, that the Antea represents an ideal beauty, a popular genre of portraiture during the Renaissance. In such portraits, the beauty of the woman and the virtues she stood for were the primary subject, while the sitter’s identity — and even her existence — were of secondary importance.