Lorenzo Greuter (rome, 1620 – 1668) Portrait Of A Lady In Oriental Dress Oil On Canvas

Lorenzo Greuter (Rome, 1620 – 1668)
Portrait of a Lady in Oriental Dress
Oil on canvas, 95.5 x 77 cm
Expertise by Dr. Massimo Pulini

This fascinating female figure, elegantly dressed in a "Turkish" costume, with a turban, embroidered cloak and oriental jewels, fits into the rich tradition of seventeenth-century Rome of allegorical portraits and exotic subjects. The lady is depicted half-length, with her gaze directed towards the observer, while in one hand she holds some arrows, hinting at a possible identification with Diana or a symbolic personification of hunting or female strength.
The face, full but moderately idealized, the rich rendering of the fabrics and the reflections on the silks and veils recall the pictorial culture of Caravaggio, filtered through the classicist experiences of Rome and Tuscany.
The painting was attributed by Massimo Pulini to Lorenzo Greuter, a painter active in Rome in the first half of the seventeenth century, son of the engraver and cartographer Matthäus Greuter. The work shows an interesting synthesis between his father's Nordic heritage and Roman visual culture, with echoes of the painting of Simon Vouet, Giovanni Baglione and Guercino, but also with a chromatic sensitivity that preludes the Tuscan school. A direct comparison can be made with the Huntress in Oriental Clothes by Cesare Dandini (Florence, Niccolini Collection), which shares both the choice of an idealized female subject in exotic clothing, and the languid pose and accentuation of the drapery. However, Greuter's figure is distinguished by a greater physiognomic concreteness and an attention to the material texture closer to Northern European culture. Eloquent comparisons can be made with the Allegory of Sculpture from the Civic Museums of Pesaro or the Allegory of Astronomy on the antiques market (Bologna, Art International, May 2021).
The work is part of the so-called "beautiful women" genre, a very popular genre in the 17th century, which mixes allegory, portraiture and sensuality. The presence of the bow and arrows refers to Diana, but the lack of naturalistic or lunar attributes suggests an invention of orientalist taste, perhaps inspired by the Ottoman fashion spread in European painting through trade and the influence of Levantine embassies.