Puzzling Pictures: 'Portrait of a Lady with the Attributes of Saint Agatha', about 1540

Attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo
1485-1547

NG24

There is a pair of breasts in a basin on the right of the picture and below the basin a pair of shears. Since the woman holds a palm and has a halo it seems natural to suppose that she is the martyr Saint Agatha who was tortured by having her breasts cut off. But since the format of the picture is similar to that of many portraits it has been proposed that this is a portrait of a lady who identified with the 3rd-century Roman martyr, perhaps because she had the same name.

However, there is something awkward about the way this woman holds her palm branch and seems somehow to raise her veil at the same time. On careful technical investigation it turns out that breasts, shears, martyr's palm and halo are all slightly later additions, perhaps the work of a contemporary follower. Even the artist's signature was added later. This leads to another type of problem - is the painting actually by 'Sebastianus of Venice' as the inscription says, or the work of a close collaborator?

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