Standing Female Nude

The Fondaco dei Tedeschi, which formed the headquarters of the German merchant community of Venice, occupies a prominent site on the Grand Canal, immediately next to the Rialto Bridge. The decoration of the principal, western fa�ade of the Fondaco was entrusted to Giorgione, who is documented as having completed his task before the autumn of 1508. His work is known mainly through a set of eighteenth-century etchings, and all that survives of the originals is a single ghostly fragment of a standing female nude. The etchings show a series of male and female nudes, which were arranged in broad friezes above the first- and second-floor windows.