Grimm says, "The portrait of the young girl or woman in the Barberini Palace is a wonderful painting. I call it so because it bears about it in a high degree the character of mysterious unfathomableness. We like to contemplate it again and again.... Her hair is brilliantly black, parted over the brow, and smoothly drawn over the temples, behind the ear; the head is encircled with a gay handkerchief, like a turban, the knots of which lie on one side above the ear, pressing it a little with their weight. "She is slightly bent forward. She sits there with her delicate shoulder a little turned to the left; she seems looking stealthily at her lover, to watch him as he paints, and yet not to stir from her position, because he has forbidden it. It seems to him, however, to be a source of the most intense pleasure to copy her accurately, and in no small matter to represent her otherwise than as he saw her before him. We fancy her to feel the jealousy, the vehemence, the joy, the unalterable good-humor, and the pride springing from the happiness of being loved by him. He, however, painted it all because he was capable of these feelings himself in their greatest depth. If his pictures do not betray this, his poems do." Muntz says, "From a technical point of view, the work is a masterpiece. Never, perhaps, has Raphael given such delicacy and subtlety to his carnations; never did he create a fuller life; we can see the blood circulate; we can feel the beating pulse. Thus the picture is a continual source of envy and despair to modern realists." Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in their life of Raphael, speak of the "warm tone of flesh burnished to a nicety and shaded with exceptional force," in this picture. "The coal-black eyes have a fascinating look of intentness, which is all the more effective as they are absolutely open, under brows of the purest curves.... The forehead has a grand arch, the cheeks are broad, the chin rounded and small. The contours are all circular. The flesh has a fulness which characterizes alike the neck, the drooping shoulders, and the arms and extremities." Passavant thus speaks of a portrait in Florence, which belonged to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "This portrait in the Pitti Palace bears a strong resemblance to the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden Museum), with this difference, however, that the features of the Virgin are ennobled. The woman in the portrait is a handsome Roman, but of quite individual character. Her form is powerful, her costume sumptuous, her beautiful black eyes flash, her mouth is refined and full of grace.