It’s always enlightening to get a private tour from an art curator. The other day, I was at Cincinnati Art Museum just as “La Vecchia” (Italian for “the old woman”) by Italian Renaissance painter Giorgione, was being unveiled following a major conservation. It will be on view through May 5.

Here are some thoughts about the painting from Peter Jonathan Bell, Cincinnati Art Museum associate curator of European paintings, sculpture and drawings:

“It’s both a portrait and an allegory. Giorgione is a foundational Renaissance artist, for the Venetian Renaissance in particular. It’s incredibly rare. There are by some counts only a couple dozen paintings that survived by him. He only had a career of about 15 years, around 1500. but because of him, Titian is who he is. Titian painted with Giorgione.

“His paintings are all shrouded in mystery in terms of subject matter, and this one more so than most. He was painting for a new class of private collectors, so many of his paintings have very complex layers of meaning.

“What really is striking about ‘La Vecchia’ is this combination of this intense realism. You can’t help but think that this is a portrait, that there’s a real person that the painter is looking at, and it’s looking back at you. It’s a frank depiction of aging, but also incredibly sensitive, I think.

“Also, after the cleaning, her gaze comes out — (no matter where you stand).

“It’s also an allegory of aging, of time. There’s the slip of paper coming out of her sleeve that says ‘col tempo,’ meaning ‘with time.’ And she’s pointing at herself while she’s making eye contact with us, the mouth is open, so she’s speaking. There’s this wonderful, sort of haunting evocation. In essence, she’s here to tell us that with time, you too will age and pass and all things come to an end.

“There’s also just this riveting, humanistic depiction of a woman. The black background is completely intentional. It’s part of the effect that pushes the figure into relief. This parapet in front of her, I feel that the artist needed to put there in order to keep her in the painting.

“These first few years of the 1500s was an amazing time in Venice. Leonardo visited, Albrecht Dürer visited, and this is the ambiance where Giorgione is painting. I think there’s a direct connection with Dürer.

“It could be the original frame for the painting. It dates to at least the mid-16th century. It’s so rare to be able to experience a work that is 510 years old, and encounter it in the same way that Dürer would have.”

The painting, created circa 1502-08, is on loan from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. “La Vecchia” will be on view in the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Gallery (G125), across from the Terrace Café. Admission is free.