'Laura', Laure de Noves wife of Hugues de Sade (d.1348)

French School. Oil painting on canvas, 'Laura', Laure de Noves, wife of Hugues de Sade (d.1348), French School, 19th century. Half-length portrait of a young woman, turned to the left, in profile, wearing a red dress and close-fitting headdress edged with red braid. Label on frame 'Petrarch's Laura, C19, Italian School'. Laure de Noves, married in 1325 to Hugo de Sade. She died, the mother of eleven children, in 1348. She was first seen by Petrarch in a church at Avignon at Eastertide in 1327 and inspired him with a passion which has become proverbial for its constancy and purity. She remained the love of his life until and even after her death and was the inspiration of his famous love poems Rime or Canzoniere. Ickworth, Suffolk (Accredited Museum)