A Female Violinist [Saint Cecilia?]

Emerging as the most advanced native painter in Genoa, Bernardo Strozzi painted a spectacular series of full-length female saints. The finest were acquired by the city’s most discriminating collector, Gian Carlo Doria. This painting is a much smaller and more cautiously executed version of two others, which can be found in the Musei Civici and in a private collection in Genoa. It was probably created in Strozzi’s thriving workshop. Lacking attributes beyond her violin and bow, the figure has usually been called a musician, but her relationship to the series and her heavenward gaze strongly imply identification with the patron saint of music, Saint Cecilia.