''Profile Portrait of a Young Lady'' is a 1465 half-length
portrait, made with
oil-based paint and
tempera on a
poplar panel, usually attributed to
Antonio del Pollaiuolo,
although the owning museum, the
Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, now describes this work as by his brother
Piero del Pollaiuolo, and as one of its most famous paintings, and as one of the most famous portraits of women from the early Italian Renaissance.
Description
The anonymous woman is depicted in a
brocade
Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and sometimes with gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli", comes from Italian ''broccato'' meaning "embos ...
dress, with her posture suggesting that she is sitting in the marble
embrasure of a window or balcony, with her profile heightened by the bright blue sky in the background.
Her blonde hair is gathered under a light bonnet. The emphatic use of line and the clarity of the contrasting colour surfaces are typical features of the
Florentine School.
Similar profile portraits of high-status women in sumptuous clothing were painted to celebrate a marriage, but the absence of jewellery may indicate this portrait shows the subject shortly before rather than just after a wedding ceremony. The unusually rich bodice has a brocade of three colours, red, white and green, depicting
pomegranates with foliage and
palmettes, symmetrical about a central line of fasteners, with red velvet sleeves embroidered with gold thread. The woman is sitting beside a balustrade inlaid with
porphyry and jewels, similar to the balustrade depicted in the
Cardinal of Portugal's Altarpiece at
San Miniato al Monte in Florence, painted by
Antonio del Pollaiuolo and his brother
Piero del Pollaiuolo in 1466–67.
''The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and Rome''
Alison Wright, Yale University Press, 2005, , p.119-
Attribution
The attribution of this portrait has troubled art historians since it first came to public attention. It was in the Galerie Massias in Paris in 1815, and passed through the collection of Earl of Ashburnham, at that time attributed to Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered ...
. It was later attributed to Piero della Francesca (compare his portrait of Battista Sforza), and it was sold through the art dealers Colnaghi in London in 1897–1898 and acquired by the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. In 1897, Wilhelm von Bode noted a resemblance to a portrait of a young woman held by the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, also then ascribed to Piero della Francesca, but Bode attributed both to Domenico Veneziano. The Gemäldegalerie followed Bode's attribution until 1972, but it was not widely accepted and it is now thought to be incorrect (the work in Milan is now ascribed to Piero del Pollaiuolo instead). Bernard Berenson attributed to the painting to Verrocchio
Andrea del Verrocchio (, , ; – 1488), born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was a sculptor, Italian painter and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence. He apparently became known as ''Verrocchio'' after the su ...
and then to Alesso Baldovinetti (compare his '' Portrait of a Lady in Yellow'').
In 1911, Adolfo Venturi attributed this work to Antonio del Pollaiuolo, and that attribution is still accepted as secure by most scholars, although a minority have suggested instead his brother Piero del Pollaiuolo. The Gemäldegalerie catalogue suggests that the varied experience of Antonio del Pollaiuolo working as a goldsmith, as a bronze maker, and as a designer of embroidery, makes him a likely candidate for the realistic depiction of the embroidered clothing in the portrait. However, Leopold Ettlinger suggested in 1963 and in a monograph on the Pollaiuolo brothers in 1978 that it should be treated as anonymous.
File:Battista sforza.jpg, Piero della Francesca, '' Portrait of Battista Sforza'', , Uffizi Gallery, Florence
File:Alesso Baldovinetti 002 cropframe.JPG, Alesso Baldovinetti, '' Portrait of a Lady in Yellow'', c. 1465, National Gallery, London
File:Piero Pollaiuolo 001.jpg, Piero del Pollaiuolo, '' Portrait of a Young Woman'', 1470–1472, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan
File:Antonio Pollaiuolo 005.jpg, Piero del Pollaiuolo, ''Portrait of a Woman'', c. 1480, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
File:Antonio Pollaiuolo 004.jpg, Antonio del Pollaiuolo or Piero del Pollaiuolo, '' Portrait of a Woman '', c. 1475, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
File:Piero del pollaiolo, le quattro dame riunite al musoe poldi pezzoli 01.JPG, Four Renaissance profile portraits of women attributed to the Pollaiolo brothers, exhibited at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan, in 2014–2015
References
{{Antonio del Pollaiuolo
1460s paintings
15th-century portraits
Paintings by Piero del Pollaiuolo
Paintings in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Portraits of women