Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova (1490?–1558)

Giovanni Battista Moroni Italian

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 612


As the Latin inscription tells us, Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova founded the Carmelite convent of Saint Anne at Albino, outside Bergamo. This remarkably unidealized portrait of the widowed abbess hung there for centuries. Instead of concealing her old age and modest dress, Moroni celebrates them in stark terms to highlight her virtuous abandonment of earthly concerns in favor of spiritual devotion. Moroni was so famous for the naturalism of his portraits that the Venetian artist Titian singled him out for that quality, and his paintings were an important precursor to Caravaggio’s revolutionary naturalism, which he began developing while living in Lombardy.

Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova (1490?–1558), Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, Albino, no later than 1524–1578 Albino), Oil on canvas

Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.