The Sleeping Girl

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This painting of Ginditta, Vedder's Italian maid (he lived in Italy for most of his life), is more theatrical than a typical portrait. Ginditta is dressed in a Renaissance-style costume and her pose is ambiguous-is she truly asleep or perhaps dead? Vedder believed that sleep was closely linked with death, the state in which the soul might be fully awakened. Although Vedder did not graphically emphasize this connection here, he did manage to imbue the image with a spirituality that is seen in so much of his art.

Keywords

Dress
Painting
Realism
Female
American
Pale
Sleeping