Portrait of a Young Lady

c. 1500

Shown against a black background, the head and shoulders of a young lady with pale, peachy skin and long, wavy brown hair fill this vertical portrait painting. The woman faces our left in profile and she looks off in that direction with light brown eyes, her head tipped slightly forward. Her skin is smooth and her full cheeks are lightly flushed. The eyebrow we can see is thin and arched. She has a small, straight, rounded nose and her full terracotta-red lips are closed. Her hair is gathered back over her shoulders, but a few fine, curling tendrils fall over her chest. She wears a thin necklace that disappears into the cleavage of her low-cut, navy-blue bodice, which has sky-blue, puffed sleeves. The back of her head is lost in shadow against the dark background.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel transferred to hardboard

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 47.3 x 34.3 cm (18 5/8 x 13 1/2 in.)
    framed: 67.3 x 53.8 x 7.6 cm (26 1/2 x 21 3/16 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.66

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Count of Castel-Pizzuto, Milan. (E. & C. Canessa, Naples). (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); sold 1916 to William Salomon [1852-1919], New York, as by Bernardino de'Conti. (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York), before 1930; sold October 1947 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] The bill of sale between Duveen Brothers and the Kress Foundation, and the Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale that includes NGA 1952.5.66, are dated 31 October 1947; the painting is identified as Beatrice D'Este, Duchess of Milan by Leonardo da Vinci (copies in NGA curatorial files from Kress Foundation files, and Box 475, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1716.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1949

  • Leonardo da Vinci Loan Exhibition, Los Angeles County Museum, 1949, no. 17, as Profile of Beatrice D'Este by Leonardo da Vinci.

Bibliography

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 62-67, repro.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 90, no. 35, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 187, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 75.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 65, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 132, fig. 322.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:109, as by Ambrogio de Predis, So-called Beatrice d'Este.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 194, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:255-256; 2:pl. 172, as Follower of Leonardo.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 100, no. 64, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 227, repro.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2003: 370-372, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q12738375

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