Description:Waist-length of a young woman in a flowing white garb and matching headdress who is looking back over her left shoulder at the viewer.
History:Apparently a copy, for according to the owner this hung in the Louvre beside the original and was purchased by Adelicia Acklen, the owner's great-great grandmother, on her European tour.
Notes:Subject:1577-99, Italian noblewoman, tragic figure of the late Renaissance. Her father, Francesco Cenci (1549-98), was a Roman noble noted for his viciousness. In 1595 he imprisoned Beatrice and her stepmother Lucrezia in a lonely castle; his cruel treatment finally led Beatrice, with the complicity of her stepmother, her brothers, and her lover, to procure his murder. After a famous trial (1599) the conspirators were put to death. This tragedy is the subject of, among other words, Francesco D. Guerrazzi's novel Beatrice Cenci. Shelley's tragedy, The Cenci ,and Alberto Ginastera's opera, Beatrix Cenci.
