![Gerard van Honthorst - Allegory of Painting [1648]](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3921/15067701391_6bf738c368_o.jpg)
In this painting, Van Honthorst conflates allegory and portraiture. The female sitter uses the tools of the trade, brushes, palette, and mahlstick, to finish the fictive canvas bearing a portrait. Though she is represented as Pictura, the personification of painting, she is at the same time a specific woman, perhaps a studio model. Cupid likewise balances allegory and the human realm. The painting he holds is thought to be Honthorst’s self-portrait.
[Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento - Oil on canvas, 138 x 113 cm]