Vittore Carpaccio
Leave-Taking of the Betrothed Pair

Fair Ursula and the English prince Aetherius meet here for the first time. On the left-hand side of the picture, blond, curly-haired Aetherius bids farewell to his father, kneeling before him and taking his hand. On the far left in the foreground, there's a group of men watching the scene. The man on the right of that group looks directly at us, while his neighbour points at the farewell scene.

On the right of the flagpole, the story continues: Aetherius and Ursula meet and reverently shake hands. They're now betrothed. However, devout Ursula has laid down sweeping conditions. Aetherius is to convert to Christianity. And the couple are to set off on a pilgrimage to Rome with a retinue of eleven thousand virgins.

So Ursula must take her leave. On the far right, the betrothed couple kneel before Ursula's father, while her mother wipes away tears. In the background, people are queuing to be ferried out to the waiting ships. The engaged couple appear once again on the jetty.

The nine paintings in the Saint Ursula Cycle were commissioned by the lay confraternity Scuola di Sant'Orsola for their assembly hall in Venice. We're showing a scaled down reconstruction of the original hanging of the scenes here in our exhibition spaces.

Carpaccio was a little over twenty when he received this major commission from the lay brothers on the 16th of November 1488. He completed the last of the nine paintings in 1500. They were among the first works Carpaccio signed with his own name, and he did so in a very special way. On each of the paintings, you'll discover a very realistically rendered piece of paper, hanging or lying around somewhere as if by accident. It's what's known as a cartellino, and it bears a Latin signature and the date. In this scene, it reads: VICTORIS CARPATIO VENETI OPUS 1495.

Have you spotted the cartellino yet?