FreePortrait of Signora Ortensia Leoni Cordini as Saint Dorothy
Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, Bolognese, 1638–1665)
Title
Portrait of Signora Ortensia Leoni Cordini as Saint Dorothy
Artist
Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, Bolognese, 1638–1665)
Date
1661
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
23 1/4 × 19 5/8 in. (59.1 × 49.8 cm)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds from the Ethel S. Abbott Art Endowment Fund
Object Number
2023.14
On View
On view
Private collection, Sweden, by the 1920s;
By descent to the owner’s grandson, Sweden and Monaco, by 2022;
Purchased at their sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, November 29, 2022, lot 123, by Robert Simon Fine Art, New York, 2022–September 2023;
Purchased from Robert Simon Fine Art, New York, by Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, 2023.
[1] As recorded in Sirani’s list of works, published by Malvasia: “per il. Sig. Francesco Cordini Fiorentino, al quale anco feci il ritratto della mogie in una testa significante santa Dotorea.” Carlo Cesare Malvasia, “Nota delle Pitture fatte da me Elisabetta Sirani,” in Felsina Pittrice: Vite de’Pittori Bolognesi, ed. Giampietro Zanotti, et. al., vol. 2 (Bologna, 1841), 396.
Giovanni Luigi Piccinardi, La poesia muta celibrata della pittura loquace, applausi di nobili ingegni al pennello immoirtale della Signora Elisabetta Sirani pittrice bolognese (Bologna: Evangelista Dozza, 1666), 13, 14.
Carlo Cesare Malvasia, “Nota delle Pitture fatte da me Elisabetta Sirani,” in Felsina Pittrice: Vite de’Pittori Bolognesi, ed. Giampietro Zanotti, et. al., vol. 2 (Bologna:Tipografia Guidi all'Ancors, 1841), 396. Originally published in Bologna in 1678.
Rafaella Morselli, “Elisabetta Sirani: Ritratto di Ortensia Leoni Cordini come Santa Dorothea” (unpublished expertise, August 10, 2023).