Explore the Description of this artwork.
The painting depicts a personification of Patience. The semi-nude female figure, her arms held tight across her body perhaps in modesty or "huddling" and "shivering" in the cold, gazes down watching as a water clock slowly erodes a stone inscribed with the Latin DIVTVRNA TOLERANTIA or "abiding patience", which is likely to be a reference to Cicero's De Inventione. The landscape behind, with buildings but unfigured, and in "frostbitten turquoise", is seen inverted by refraction in the water vessel. The figure's braided hair gleams in the light, against a backdrop of a moody and sombre sky. According to the National Gallery, "the monumentality of the figure and iridescent colours are indebted to Michelangelo"; Matthias Wivel (a curator at that gallery) highlights also the "emotional exposure [Michelangelo] espoused".
Patience water clock Michelangelo Cicero National Gallery De Inventione personification