A new half-length by Palma Vecchio: Two Women and a Shepherd

This paper presents a new painting by Palma, with an ambiguous subject of a type characteristic of Venetian painting in the first three decades of the sixteenth century. The composition, showing three secular figures in half length, and the themes of love, music and the pastoral, are closely associated both with Giorgione and the early Titian, but the present painting is typical of Palma both in its style, and its more explicit eroticism. Several of the poses represent variations on other, well-known works by the artist, and it is argued that it dates from the mid- or late 1520s, shortly before his death in 1528.