Flash – Irish Writers' Heaven

Flash fiction

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas, 119.20 x 165.50 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

La bella donna.

Wordcount: 150

The frantic maids surely found something for her to put on. Titian must have painted her again after that time; when those fingers, even if they weren’t inside at completion, were there before or after — although Bartolini was a shade more circumspect when he made his plaster cast in the Accademia.

Would like to see more of this lady. Ronan said: “But you can: come and visit me in Bagno a Ripoli, stay a few days, and you can go and view her in the Pitti, fully clothed, but with a twinkle in her eye.”

Wow. Would really, really love to see that.

Anticipation mounts with each muscle flex on the steps to the Palatine gallery. Ronan said she’d be here, beside the entrance. But she’s not. Just a shadow on the wall. Ask this attendant.

“Sorry signore, that painting has been sent on loan to a gallery in Russia.”