The subject is a young girl portrayed at half length in profile, facing left. Her breasts are bared and a small snake twines around the necklace she is wearing. In the background is an open landscape, arid on the left and lush on the right. The dark clouds are a symbol of her early death, as is the dead tree in the background. At the base of the painting is a border with an inscription that mimics carved letters, a method used in art since the Flemish painter
Jan van Eyck at the beginning of the century; it reads: SIMONETTA IANUENSIS VESPUCCIA. The dark clouds contrast with the pure profile of the face and the clear complexion. It is traditionally identified as a portrait of Simonetta.
Giorgio Vasari regarded her as portraying
Cleopatra, because of the
toplessness and the snake, which he identified with the
asp with which, according to
Plutarch, Cleopatra committed suicide. However, the art historian Norbert Schneider regards it as more likely that the iconography of the portrait derives from that in late Classical antiquity, in which the snake, especially
biting its own tail, symbolized the cycle of time and hence rejuvenation, and was thus associated with
Janus, the Roman god of the
new year, and with
Saturn, who became a "Father Time" figure because his Greek name,
Kronos, was conflated with
Chronos, meaning "time". The inscription refers to Simonetta as
Januensis (
of Genoa, but the variant spelling punning on Janus). The snake was also the symbol of
Prudentia; in that interpretation, it would be praise for Simonetta's wisdom. An alternative suggestion is that she is presented as
Proserpina, with the snake symbolizing the pagans' hope of resurrection. The bust, in 15th-century style, is slightly turned towards the spectator, so as to favour the view, and her shoulders are wrapped in a richly embroidered cloth. According to Schneider, her naked breasts would not have caused any offense to contemporary viewers. They were rather an allusion to
Venus Pudica, or the "chaste"
Venus, and in
Paris Bordone's allegories of lovers (c. 1550) toplessness is a symbol of the wedding. Her features have a surprising purity. The forehead is high, according to the fashion of the time which included a shaved hairline. The hairstyle is that of a married woman, gathered up in braids and richly decorated with ribbons, beads, and pearls. ==Subject's identity==