The revealed hands align the School of Fontainebleau painting with an oft-repeated image of the Roman empress Poppaea Sabina (30–65) that circulated in the French court around 1550. Ten variants of this image type have been documented, with the Norton Simon’s panel increasing this number to eleven. The gossamer veil enveloping Poppaea’s body and her distinctively arranged hands—one draped loosely over her chest, the other curved toward her face in a gesture of sultry languor—appear in every variant. While the Norton Simon’s panel appears to have been cropped, the other compositions extend downward past the hands to expose Poppaea’s right breast. Five of the eleven paintings continue even further to depict simulated stone cartouches, four of which bear Poppaea’s name. The panel preserved at the Musée d’Art et d'Histoire in Geneva, Switzerland is the best known of the eleven (fig. 1). With the remaining variants held in private collections, the Geneva panel was the only one accessible to researchers and the public until the discovery of the Norton Simon’s own Poppaea Sabina.
Having found evidence for the figure’s identity through technical analysis, inquiry into the painting’s artistic and cultural milieu brings its significance into focus.
Figure 1: School of Fontainebleau, Sabina Poppaea, c. 1550–1560, oil on wood, 32.48 x 25.98 in. (82.50 x 66 cm), MAH Musée d’Art et d'Histoire, City of Geneva. Legacy Jean Jaquet, 1839 (inv. 1841-0001), © Musée d'art et d'histoire, Ville de Genève, photographe: Flora Bevilacqua