1495 (ca.), Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo della Porta), Portia -- Uffizi Gallery (Florence)
From the museum label: Portia was the wife of Brutus, one of the conspirators involved in the murder of Julius Caesar. After her husband's suicide, she too killed herself by swallowing burning coals (on the ground on the right in the picture), thus becoming a symbol of wifely loyalty. Portia, together with the Louvre Minerva, may have been part of a series of illustrious women portrayed as living statues in niches. The two paintings are the only non-religious subjects painted by the friar who, inspired by Savonarola's austere morality, burnt his secular works before taking his vows in the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence in 1500.
1495 (ca.), Fra Bartolomeo (Bartolomeo della Porta), Portia -- Uffizi Gallery (Florence)
From the museum label: Portia was the wife of Brutus, one of the conspirators involved in the murder of Julius Caesar. After her husband's suicide, she too killed herself by swallowing burning coals (on the ground on the right in the picture), thus becoming a symbol of wifely loyalty. Portia, together with the Louvre Minerva, may have been part of a series of illustrious women portrayed as living statues in niches. The two paintings are the only non-religious subjects painted by the friar who, inspired by Savonarola's austere morality, burnt his secular works before taking his vows in the Dominican convent of San Marco in Florence in 1500.