Costanza Buonarelli

In the gallery of Bernini's portraits there is no question that the most vivid are those of his friends, and of individuals to whom the artist felt some bond - Cardinal Borghese, Pope Urban VIII, and this sanguine figure of the woman he loved during the most triumphant years of his career. Such is the urgency of the life and sentiment in this work that one overlooks the bravura of its execution.