English: "Probably painted during or shortly after von Schadow's journey to Italy in 1830, this ravishing portrait of a Roman noblewoman with a flawless porcelain complexion epitomises his genius as a portraitist.
The identity of the sitter remains a mystery. However, we know that Crown Prince Ludwig, later King Ludwig I of Bavaria, was a patron of Schadow's from the time Schadow lived in Rome, and that he had commissioned at least one other portrait of the same title, which was exhibited in Berlin in 1820. Though there is no proof, the sitter bears a striking resemblance to Ludwig's favourite mistress Marianna Marquesa Florenzi (1802-70), whom Ludwig had met in Rome in 1821 and who wrote him no fewer than three thousand letters during their subsequent forty-five year friendship." [1]