This work is from the series 'Sonnets' which explores the concepts of beauty decay and time ever present in Shakespeare's Sonnets.
The title is borrowed from Sonnet 103:
“Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;
And more, much more, than in my verse can sit
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.
I was interested in portraits of women around the Renaissance and Elizabethan era. This painting is after a portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio from 1488. The profile is combined with an interwoven flower pattern. The woman sits behind a veil of netting which perhaps has the effect of removing her from the viewer’s presence and setting her back in time.
The painting has a 3cm outer wooden frame (see 2nd photograph / included in painting dimensions) which acts as a support.