Wreath of Laurel, Palm, and Juniper with a Scroll inscribed Virtutem Forma Decorat [reverse]

c. 1474/1478

Leonardo da Vinci

Painter, Florentine, 1452 - 1519

A laurel branch to the left and a palm branch to the right, both in muted green tones, curve toward each other, crossing near the top to frame a sprig of spiky juniper in this square painting. A scroll with the Latin words “VIRTVUTEM FORMA DECORAT” weaves around and across the circle made by the branches near the bottom of the composition. The laurel has slightly serrated, oblong leaves that come to a point at either end. The palm has closely packed, narrow leaves that flare out like a feather to our right. The laurel, palm, and delicate twig of juniper are cut off near the bottom edge, where there is an area of flat brown that rises like a mound at the middle and tapers to each side. The rest of the background is dark brown speckled with rose pink, and a crimson-red, round seal is pressed into the top right corner.

Media Options

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Ginevra de' Benci's portrait is two-sided. This is the back, an emblematic portrait of Ginevra. A scroll bears her Latin motto, meaning "Beauty Adorns Virtue." In the emblem's center, a sprig of juniper (in Italian, ginepro) suggests Ginevra's name, while the encircling laurel and palm symbolize her intellectual and moral virtue. The laurel and palm also happened to be the personal emblem of Bernardo Bembo, Venetian ambassador to Florence, whose deep and abiding relationship with Ginevra is revealed in poems dedicated to them. Their platonic friendship was typical of the era and consistent with Ginevra's elite status as the daughter of a wealthy banker. Infrared examination has revealed Bembo's motto "Virtue and Honor" beneath Ginevra's. So it is likely Bembo who ordered the emblematic painting on the verso of the portrait. It is possible, but so far unproven, that he also commissioned the front.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 6

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall (original panel only): 38.1 x 37 cm (15 x 14 9/16 in.)
    overall (thickness of original panel): 1.1 cm (7/16 in.)
    overall (with addition at bottom edge): 42.7 x 37 cm (16 13/16 x 14 9/16 in.)
    overall (thickness of addition at bottom edge): 1.9 cm (3/4 in.)
    framed: 59.7 x 57.8 x 3.8 cm (23 1/2 x 22 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1967.6.1.b

More About this Artwork

This square portrait shows the head and shoulders of a young woman in front of a spiky bush that fills much of the background except for a landscape view that extends into the deep distance to our right. The woman's body is angled to our right but her face turns to us. She has chalk-white, smooth skin with heavily lidded, light brown eyes, and her pale pink lips are closed. Pale blush highlights her cheeks, and she looks either at us or very slightly away from our eyes. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back, but tight, lively curls frame her face. Her hair turns gold where the light shines on it. She wears a brown dress, trimmed along the square neckline with gold. The front of the bodice is tied with a blue ribbon, and the lacing holes are also edged with gold. A sheer white veil covers her chest and is pinned at the center with a small gold ball. The bush fills the space around her head with copper-brown, spiky leaves. A river winds between trees and rolling hills in the distance to our right. Trees and a town along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the painting, is pale blue under an ice-blue sky.

Article:  10 Surprising Facts About Leonardo da Vinci’s “Ginevra de’ Benci”

Did you know he made it before the “Mona Lisa?” And that he finger painted? Uncover more unexpected details about the only painting by the artist in the Americas.

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Presumably purchased in Florence by Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein [1657-1712] before 1712, but certainly in the collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein by 1733, Vienna;[1] by descent to Prince Franz Josef II von und zu Liechtenstein [1906-1989], Vienna and later, Vaduz, Liechtenstein;[2] purchased 10 February 1967 by NGA.
[1] The name "Ginevra" was too common in the Renaissance to assume with Jean Adhémar ("Une galerie de portraits italiens à Amboise en 1500," Gazette des Beaux Arts 86, no. 1281 (October 1975): 100), followed by Fern Rusk Shapley (Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:251-255), that a portrait of a lady so named in an inventory made at Amboise in 1500 refers to Leonardo's painting, which the early sources, to the contrary, place in Florence. It is not known whether the painting belonged to the Benci family in the early sixteenth century, as Antonio Billi (Il Libro di Antonio Billi esistente in due copie nella Biblioteca nazionale di Firenze, ed. Carl Frey, Berlin, 1892: 51), who presumably saw it, does not give its location.
The picture may well have entered the Liechtenstein Collection by 1712 or earlier, as the 1733 red wax seal on the reverse, bearing the Liechtenstein arms, designated works that were part of the "Fideikommissgalerie" of Prince Johann Adam, held in trust but not personally collected by the then-reigning Prince Josef Wenzel (1696-1772) (see Reinhold Baumstark, "Collecting Paintings," in _Liechtenstein, The Princely Collections_, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985: 183-185). The founder of the picture gallery at Feldsberg was Prince Karl Eusebius (1611-1684), a distinguished connoisseur who liked small cabinet-type paintings. He was succeeded by his son, the already mentioned Prince Johann Adam, also an avid collector who, however, preferred the Italian Baroque. Either could have obtained the painting in Florence, where both traveled (Olga Raggio, "The Collection of Sculpture," in _Liechtenstein, The Princely Collections_, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985: 63-65). Leonardo's authorship, in any case, came to be forgotten, as the panel was attributed to Lucas Cranach in the Liechtenstein Catalogue of 1780.

[2] During World War II the picture was transferred, with the rest of the collection, from the Garden Palace in Vienna to the castle at Vaduz in the principality of Liechtenstein, and from there it was acquired from Prince Franz Josef II for the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1948

  • Meisterwerke aus den Sammlungen des Fürsten von Lichtenstein, Kunstmuseum, Lucerne, 1948, no. 103, repro.

1951

  • [Exhibition of paintings lent by the Prince of Liechtenstein], National Gallery, London, 1951, no catalogue.

1969

  • In Memoriam, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969, unnumbered checklist.

2001

  • Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's 'Ginevra de' Benci' and Renaissance Portraits of Women, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, no. 16, color repro.

Bibliography

1967

  • Walker, John. "Ginevra de'Benci by Leonardo da Vinci." Studies in the History of Art 1 (1967): 4, 12, figs. 2, 10.

1990

  • Lippincott, Kristen. "The Genesis and Significance of the Fifteenth-century Italian Impresa." In Chivalry in the Renaissance. Edited by Sydney Anglo. Woodbridge, UK and Rochester, NY, 1990: 73, fig. 16.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 8-9, fig. 3.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 28-29, no. 22, color repro.

  • Nuttall, Paula. From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting, 1400-1500. New Haven and London, 2004: 224-227, fig. 247.

2006

  • Hartt, Frederick, and David G. Wilkins. History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, 2006: 453-454, color fig. 16.15.

2012

  • Dempsey, Charles. The Early Renaissance and Vernacular Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: vii, 36, 39, 41, fig. 5.

2018

  • Kranz, Annette. “The Portrait in the Florentine Quattrocento.” In Andreas Schumacher, ed. Florence and its Painters: From Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci. Exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2018: 82.

2019

  • Keizer, Joost. Leonardo’s Paradox: Word and Image in the Making of Renaissance Culture. London, 2019: 72.

2024

  • Manges Nogueira, Alison. “Concealing portraits in Renaissance Venice: Jacometto’s painted box.” The Burlington Magazine 166 (February 2024): 131.

  • Mangues Noguera, Alison. Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance. Exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2024: 35, fig. 24, 41.

Inscriptions

across bottom on scroll, the beginning of a hexameter: VIRTVTEM FOR/MA DECORAT (She adorns her virtue with beauty)

Wikidata ID

Q20174114

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