# Woman in a Red Dress [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MORONI, Giovanni Battista]() - Date: 1551-1600 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 135 x 90 cm ## Commentary The artists of the Italian renaissance introduced fundamental innovations in portraiture, including, in particular, a new type of realism and convincing lifelikeness. This painting affirms Moroni as a master of his craft. The three-quarter figure stands by a table addressing the viewer directly. She holds a cloth bag in one hand and a "caccia dei pulci" \(flea fur\) in the other. Flea furs were worn for sanitary reasons from the Middle Ages on, in order to keep fleas and other blood-sucking insects away from the human body. They could be made of weasel fur - as this one - or of ermine, polecat or sable fur. During the Renaissance, flea furs were fashionable accessories in aristocratic garb. Formerly, the painting was attributed to Titian. ## Related artworks - [A Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna]() - [Abbess Lucrezia Agliardi Vertova]() - [Gian Lodovico Madruzzo]() - [Portrait of a Gentleman]() - [Portrait of a Gentleman]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [Portrait of a Man]() - [Portrait of a Soldier]() - [Portrait of Antonio Navagero]() - [Portrait of Don Gabriel de la Cueva, later Duke of Alburquerque \(detail\)]() - [Portrait of Don Gabriel de la Cueva, later Duke of Alburquerque]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()