How Works of Art Get Their Names

Brian Palmer from Slate has written an interesting article about the process of naming old paintings. Until the middle of the 17th century, it was uncommon for an artist to name his or her own painting. Usually, descriptive names like “Profile of a Young Woman” were given for record-keeping purposes, but the names we know today (like “Mona Lisa” or “La Belle Ferronniere”) were given posthumously by art historians. When historians needed to refer to certain pieces about which they were writing, the original vague descriptions became obsolete. The growing conversational and academic focus on pre-17th-century paintings also called for a shorthand way to refer to the paintings—usually a more succinct and specific name, short and to the point. Moreover, some of these paintings, like Botticelli’s “Primavera,” bore different appellations throughout the centuries:

Botticelli's Primavera was described as a "Painting by Botticelli with Nine Figures" in a 16th-century catalog of the Medici family's holdings. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the same painting is described in other collectors' catalogs as The Garden of the Hesperides. Modern scholars adopted the current name in accordance with the interpretation of 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari, who described the painting's subject as the arrival of spring (in Italian, primavera).

Some artists, like Jan Vermeer, occasionally christened their paintings with interesting and peculiar names, but most paintings were nameless. Much of how we look at paintings today, or at least how we remember and think of them, has to do with their names. The name of a painting lends itself intensely to that work’s identity. When Mona Lisa’s other name, La Joconde or La Gioconda, is used I feel slightly uncomfortable, as La Joconde carries a much more formal tone—Gioccondo was her husband’s family name. Part of the charm in Mona Lisa, to me, and I’m sure to a great many people, is the informality of her gaze and her pose. It seems like using her first name is more fitting. Palmer also delves into the changes that took place within academy system and how and when artists gained the control to name their own pieces.

La Bella PrincipessaLa Belle Ferronniere