What started out as a model-artist relationship flamed into a romance that would cause Raphael's contemporaries, as well as later artists such as Picasso and Ingres, to notice and try to recreate. Artists have their muses, but only a select few can claim to be as thoroughly cherished as Margarita Luti was by Raphael. Margarita appears in numerous paintings by Raphael as Madonna, an unfortunate sea nymph being dragged to the depths of the ocean by a raunchy merman, St. Cecilia, and one of Christ's disciples. Raphael was far above her in class. While he lodged in the Villa Farnesina at the patronage of the affluent Farnese family, Margarita was what the title of Raphael's more intimate portrait suggests, a fornarina, or baker's daughter. 

Only a few differences separate Raphael's two portraits of his mistress. While La Fornarina displays Margarita to the world like a sexual object that's literally marked with his name - on a ribbon around her upper arm - his La Donna Velata, or Lady with Veil, is a more intimate depiction of his lover in an enclosed and diffused setting.

Margarita's slender neck and demure bosom is countered by a suggestive hand on her breast. The gesture, seen in the portraits of distinguished gentlemen and lords as a sign of empathy or graciousness, is anything but gracious in this portrait. Her index finger has strayed from the rest of her hand and landed in the valley of her corset, a teasing invitation to pleasures Raphael was all too familiar with. The veil increases the privacy of this act, though, creating a cozy, darkened place where the gesture could be more subtle. Traveling up to her face, one stops to admire the pearl in her hair. Romantically, in Italian, the word for pearl is margarita, signifying her importance to him and leaving little to the imagination as to what his pet name for her could have been. 

In contrast with La Fornarina, the Margarita in this painting has softer features, glazed eyes, pinker lips, and rosier cheeks. A stray curl springs free of her bun to fan her face. At first glance, she looks proper and demure. After noticing all of these details, there can be no mistaking what has just previously transpired. However, unlike Raphael's other blatantly sexual portrait, this one is done in better taste with subtler details and an overall feeling of preciousness and ardor instead of unbridled lust. La Donna Velata is a shrine to a woman Raphael worshipped, conveying the love and passion of his scandalous relationship with the baker's daughter.