Flora, c.1530 (oil on panel)

Flora was the Roman goddess of spring and of gardens, but in a less innocent form was also the roman courtesan deified by the Senate in the version of the legend by Lactantius which is recirculated by Boccaccio. The ‘Flora’ seen here is one of Luini’s most idealized figures, suggesting that it is strictly a representation of the goddess, rather than a disguised portrait of a contemporary courtesan common in Venetian Flora-paintings. Shown at half-length, facing half to the left and smiling, the goddess is wearing a transparent chemise with a striped robe over her left shoulder and is holding flowers in both hands. There is a coarser variant of the painting, with the figure turned to our right, in the Borghese Gallery, Rome. Provenance Charles I Collection