Portrait of a Young Girl with a Dove

This painting of an alluring young girl holding a dove to her chest is the work of the Venetian painter and portraitist Natale Schiavoni, who also worked in Milan during the Napoleonic period. In the deed of donation to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the portrait is indicated as a “Symbol of Innocence”: it is thus an allegorical picture, as indeed the idealised look of the girl would suggest.