Catalog 27 - Unknown artist, Portrait of Elena Bembo, Pietro Bembo’s Daughter at the Age of Twelve, c. 1540, medium unknown, untraced Evidence 1540 Letter from Pietro Bembo in Rome to Cola Bruno in Padua Il ritratto della Elena non le somiglia, oltra che la fa di 16 o 18 anni. Né ha per niente la sua grazietta.415 Comments The same month that Bembo received the portrait of himself from Titian, he had also been sent from Cola a portrait of his daughter. Commissioned at a point when he had recently relocated to Rome as a cardinal, the painting of Elena by an unnamed artist was meant to create a surrogate image for Bembo during his absence from his daughter, much as Bernardo had sought in his commission of an image of Pietro at about the very same age. In Rome he had apparently received the portrait of her, who was at that time living in a convent outside Padua. He writes to Cola, his friend and secretary. The portrait disappoints for two reasons. His first complaint could be one of any father about his daughter who is growing to maturity. Although she is only 12 years old, Bembo objects that it makes her look 16 or 18 years old. His second problem is more interesting: it fails to capture her grace; it has fallen short of his expectation that her interior quality should be conveyed in the exterior appearance in the painted image.416 This painting is untraced. 415 Bembo, Lettere, edizione critica: collezione di opere inedite o rare, 4:2189. 416 For Pietro and Elena’s relationship, see Sarah Gwyneth Ross, The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 54-66. 192 .