1 / 1

download image
This image is in the public domain. You can copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes. Learn more about our image policies.

Shown from the chest up against a dark, teal-blue background, a light-skinned woman looks off to our left left in this vertical portrait painting. Her arms extend slightly in front of her, as if they rest on her knee. Her face turns almost in profile to our left as she gazes in that direction with hooded light brown eyes under curved brows. She has a sloping nose, a pointed chin, and her thin, light pink lips are closed. A white covering over her hair, which has been pulled back and up, is layered under a translucent ivory-white veil that covers her forehead and the sides of her face. A charcoal-gray stripe on the veil creates a line from her cheek to the back of her head. Her dress has a black bodice and sleeves, and the chest and the tops of her shoulders are covered with another veil. A patch of burgundy red shows through where the dress is laced up over the chest.

Attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio

Lucrezia Tornabuoni, c. 1475

Not on View

Medium

tempera and oil on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 53.3 x 39.9 cm (21 x 15 11/16 in.)

framed: 73.3 x 59.7 x 6.4 cm (28 7/8 x 23 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.5.62

Artists / Makers

Domenico Ghirlandaio (painter) Florentine, 1449 - 1494

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

on reverse, probably by later hand, three words: [?] Tornabuoni [?]

Provenance

Possibly Palazzo Tornabuoni, Florence, until c. 1850.[1] William Graham [1817-1885], London; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2-3 and 8-10 April 1886, 3rd day, no. 200, as Portrait of a Lady, bought in by Agnew's for executors of Graham estate); Kenneth Muir-MacKenzie, 1st baron Muir-Mackenzie [1845-1930], London;[2] by inheritance to his daughter, Dorothea Muir-Mackenzie Hambourg [Mrs. Mark Hambourg], London. (Frank T. Sabin, London), in 1937.[3] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold July 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA.

[1] That there existed at least one, and probably two, painted panel portraits of Lucrezia Tornabuoni in the fifteenth century is verified by two documents: the inventory of Lorenzo de' Medici's possessions made at his death in 1492 includes mention of "Uno quadro di legname, dipintovi la 'mpronta di madonna Lucrezia" (Marco Spallanzani and Giovanni Gaeta Bertelà, eds., Libro d'inventario dei beni di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Florence, 1992: 124), and the 1497 inventory of the household of Lucrezia's brother, Giovanni Tornabuoni, lists "1o quadretto d'una testa e busto di Mona Luchrezia de' Medicj" (Patricia Simons, Portraiture and Patronage in Quattrocento Florence with Special References to the Tornaquinci and their Chapel in S. Maria Novella, 2 vols., Ph.D. diss., University of Melbourne, 1985: 1:146; John Lydecker, The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence, Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1997: 63 n. 84). Given Lucrezia Tornabuoni's preeminent position in 15th century Florence as the wife of Piero de' Medici, the mother of Lorenzo de' Medici, and an accomplished poetess in her own right, it seems likely that both documents refer to portraits of her, but it is possible that the subject of either portrait was instead Lorenzo de' Medici's eldest daughter, also named Lucrezia (1470-after 1550).

In his life of Botticelli, Vasari noted a profile portrait of Lucrezia Tornabuoni in the guardaroba of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (Vasari, Vite, 2nd ed., 1567, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 1876: 3:322), which may well be identical with the portrait of Lucrezia listed in the 1553 inventory of the duke's guardaroba: "1o Quadro pittoui Madonna Lucretia di Piero de Medici con cornice dorata" (Transcribed by Herbert P. Horne from documents in the Archivio di Stato, Florence, in Alessandro Filipepi, Commonly Called Sandro Botticelli, London, 1908: 365). If it is also the painting mentioned in the 1492 Medici inventory, the NGA portrait, not a profile, would presumably be the one from the Tornabuoni collection.

[2] Ellis Waterhouse wrote to Fern Rusk Shapley on 22 July 1980 (in NGA curatorial files) that Graham's daughters could not agree how to divide up what they wanted, so Agnew's bought in at the sale for the family, and the daughters (Lady Hailsham, Lady Horner, Lady Jekyll and Lady Muir-Mackenzie) divided the paintings according to the prices at which they were bought in. Lady Muir-Mackenzie, who died in 1900, must have acquired the NGA painting, although it is her husband's name that is published as the owner.

[3] Dr. Alfred Scharf, in a letter of 22 August 1951 to Fern Rusk Shapley (in NGA curatorial files), provided this information and the name of the exhibition at the Sabin gallery in which the painting was shown that year.

[4] The Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi on 17 June 1950 for a group of 125 paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1952.5.62. The offer was accepted on July 1, and the works of art were released to the Foundation on July 6 after the first payment was received. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files as well as The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1307).

Associated Names

Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Contini Bonacossi, Alessandro, Count
Graham, William
Hambourg, Dorothea Muir-Mackenzie
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Muir-Mackenzie, 1st baron Muir-Mackenzie, Kenneth Augustus, Sir
Palazzo Tornabuoni
Sabin, Frank T.

Exhibition History

1937: Gems of Painting, Sabin Galleries, London, 1937, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2001: Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's 'Ginevra de' Benci' and Renaissance Portraits of Women, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, fig. 10.

Bibliography

1951: 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: 56, no. 16, repro., as Portrait of a Lady by Florentine School (Possibly Domenico Ghirlandaio).

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 67, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 57.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 125, fig. 334.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 50, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 152, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:203-204; 2:pl. 140.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 104, no. 73, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 174, repro.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 303-307, color repro.