(Milan active mid-15th Century)
Portrait of a lady, possibly Duchessa Bianca Maria Visconti Sforza,
bust-length,
tempera on panel, 27.5 x 17.5 cm, unframed

The features of the young woman in the present painting are similar to those of the heiress of the Duchy of Milan, Bianca Maria Visconti, who married Francesco Sforza. This portrait therefore possibly shows an image of the duchess from her youth, before her celebrated portrait in fresco by Bonifacio Bembo in Sant’Agostino, Cremona from 1462. This painting demonstrates the continuing late gothic taste in mid-fifteenth century Lombard painting associated with the court of Milan. In addition to the stylistic affinities with the work of Bonifacio Bembo, there are marked similarities in the linear outlining of the forms in the present painting that are reminiscent of the ‘Maestro dei Giochi Borromeo’, who painted the frescoes in the Palazzo Borromeo in Milan, as well as to the painting in frescoes by the brothers Zavattari in Monza Cathedral from circa 1444. The depiction of the sitter’s features is can be compared to the Legend of Queen Theodelinda in particularly with the figures in the scene depicting the Departure for the Hunt.

The unusual format of the present painting may derive from Flemish sources and suggests that this work may have once formed the right wing of a diptych and would have been paired with an image of the sitter’s husband or another relative.