"Donne decorative. Identità e genere nel ritratto femminile tra Otto e Novecento"

This paper looks at the strong decorative value taken on by female portraits between the end of the XIXth Century and the beginning of the XXth Century, asking questions about its causes and exploring the blurring of boundaries between the genre of female portraiture and other types of representation. The essay examines a category of portraits in which details of dress and furniture are aimed not just at social characterization, but also at melting the model into the context, blurring her individuality; its origin is traced back to the widespread XIXth century tendency to identify women with the decorative,at the same time seeing furniture and dress as expression of feminine identity. The paper explores the continuity between this kind of portraiture and a type of iconography showing lazy women in elegant interiors (iconography of the "decorative woman").