Portrait of a Girl with a Pigeon
Ca. 1620. Oil on canvas.Room 003
A smiling girl, seemingly aged around ten, looks out at the viewer, fully engaging our attention. Her relaxed pose contrasts with the rigid conventions of portraiture of this period. The figure is surprisingly similar to the naked girl that represents Beauty in the painting Time defeated by Hope and Beauty by the same artist, also on display in this gallery, in which she seems older, thus proving the two different dates of these works. Vouet painted this portrait during his Roman period, which ended in 1627 when he returned to Paris.