Portrait of Maria Teresa de Vallabriga on horseback

A woman shown mounted

The title states the whole subject: a named sitter, Maria Teresa de Vallabriga, and the fact that she is on horseback. Equestrian portraiture of women follows the same basic logic as the male version — the animal supplies height and the sitter supplies composure — but it was a smaller and more codified category, and the pictures that survive tend to be portraits of standing rather than of activity. The record attaches no hunt, journey or ceremony to this one.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives 1783 as the date of creation and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence as the location. The dimensions are 82.5 x 61.7 cm, which is small beside the three-metre state portraits elsewhere in this register. Romanticism is the recorded style and Spanish the nationality attached to the painter. The categories include a landscape heading and a mountain heading alongside Animal Art > Horse, so the setting registered is open country. The measured colour family of the image is yellow.

Where the record is noisy

This entry carries both male and female portrait categories, and a lion tag that no part of the title supports. Automated subject tagging produces artefacts of that kind. Where the categories and the title disagree, this register follows the title and says so rather than quietly repairing the data.