Past Exhibition

Virtue and Beauty

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.
Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de' Benci [obverse], c. 1474/1478, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1967.6.1.a

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 11, 12, 17 through 19
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.
Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de' Benci [obverse], c. 1474/1478, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1967.6.1.a

Overview: 33 paintings, 6 drawings, 6 medals, and 3 sculptures were shown in the exhibition, which focused on female portraiture in Florence, Italy, from c. 1440 to c. 1540. In addition to portraits of women, the presentation included several male portraits, related northern European works, and works that related specifically to Leonardo's ¹Ginevra de Benci.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. David Alan Brown, curator of Italian Renaissance painting, National Gallery of Art, was curator.

Sponsor: The exhibition was supported by Airbus. It was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Support for the catalogue was provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Attendance: 171,926

Catalog: Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's "Ginevra de Benci" and Renaissance Portraits of Women, edited by David Alan Brown, with contributions by Mary Westerman Bulgarella et al. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2001.

Brochure: Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's "Ginevra de Benci"and Renaissance Portraits of Women. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2001.

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