Blindfolded young woman walking

On the scroll, in reverse: VA˙INLA˙CA…NEVA

Copy, on the same verso, of a niello print formerly kept in the Durazzo collection (n. 2834), now in Paris, Louvre, Cabinet Rothschild collection.

This print can be tentatively assigned to northern Italy, and specifically to Bologna. Zanetti and Dutuit believed the dialect of the inscription to be that of Venice and accordingly attributed the piece to the Venetian school.

The words Va inla caneva are probably Emilian instead of, or in addition to, being Venetian. The subject is enigmatic.

The nielli of the Durazzo collection were reproduced in engravings by the owner himself, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in Venice - as also specified by Malaspina in his catalog of 1824 - constituting a series that was circulated and collected by amateurs. Bartsch describes these copies in his volume published in 1811, a date that therefore constitutes the terminus ante quem for the execution.