The Marriage Portrait

Both in the novel’s title and in Alfonso’s collection, the marriage portrait that Il Bastianino and his assistants paint of Lucrezia stands in for the real woman and is an important motif throughout the narrative. O’Farrell acknowledges that little is known of the historic Lucrezia’s personality and life experiences and that the only portrait available to her is one commissioned by her parents before her marriage by Angnolo Bronzino, circa 1560. While her wearing of both Medici and Este jewelry in this portrait makes it symbolic of her marriage, the scale of the portrait is diminutive, and the expression on Lucrezia’s face is “uncertain, apprehensive.” To O’Farrell’s knowledge, the Ferrarese portrait to which Robert Browning refers in his poem and on which her novel elaborates is fictional. Still, the novel’s title and its attempt to portray Lucrezia and the realities of her marriage elaborate on this gap in the historical record.

The painting of the portrait, which occupies the second half of the novel, has a dual function: satisfying Alfonso’s ego and showing the truth of Lucrezia’s essence. Initially, when Alfonso behaves as a pleasant groom, these two endeavors are joined; he laments the Medicis’ oversight in failing to have Lucrezia flatteringly painted and endeavors to correct this with a work that will remove her from obscurity and advertise her beauty to the world.