A Woman of San Germano 1864, oil on canvas, 221/2 x 251/2 inches (57.5 x 65.2 cm). Collection of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, accession no. WA2011.2. Click on image to enlarge it.
Holman Hunt painted a closely related picture entitled Past and Present featuring a lady in Neapolitan costume kneeling in a church. Although he painted the figure in 1863, he didn’t complete the background until he went to Naples in 1868. This painting is now in the collection of the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum. Martineau’s painting The Woman of San Germano features the same model wearing the identical traditional Neapolitan costume. Martineau never visited Italy, however, but there was a strong Italian community in the Holborn area of London, including a significant element that had come from the region around San Germano. Unlike Hunt’s work the background of Martineau’s painting was purely imaginary and not painted in Southern Italy. — Dennis T. Lanigan
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Last modified 21 January 2022