Portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci

Portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci
Leonardo da Vinci , 1474-1478
oil on wood
43 × 37 cm
National Gallery of Art , Washington DC

Back: VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT

Hypothetical reconstruction of the portrait and comparison with the Mona Lisa .

Hand study, Leonardo da Vinci, 21 cm × 15 cm, Royal Collection , Windsor Castle

The portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). It is dated around 1474 to 1478 and is in the holdings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

The work

The picture is one of Leonardo's earliest attempts with the then new medium of oil paint . The careful depiction of nature and the delicate three-dimensionality of the face clearly show the new naturalism with which Leonardo later changed Renaissance painting . The person depicted is represented with gradual gradations of color and shadows, not lines and abrupt transitions of color or light.

It is believed that the lower part of the painting was trimmed; a few centimeters of the right edge of the picture may have been removed. A surviving drawing by Leonardo could indicate that the person was carrying a small twig, possibly a flower. Ginevra's face is framed by the leaves of a juniper bush. Possibly the choice of this plant is a play on words with the name “Ginevra”: An Italian name for juniper is “Ginepro”.

On the back of the wooden panel, surrounded by a laurel branch and a palm leaf, a banner is attached: VIRTVTEM FORMA DECORAT (German: "the figure adorns virtue" or, more freely translated, "beauty increases the shine of virtue").

history

The person depicted Ginevra de 'Benci (1457–1520) was the daughter of a wealthy Florentine banker. Her portrait was probably commissioned at the time of her marriage to the merchant Luigi Niccolini (* around 1440). Ginevra was sixteen at the time.

It is unclear whether the painting was ever in the possession of the de 'Benci family. It has been in the collection of the Princely House of Liechtenstein since the 17th or 18th century . The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC acquired it from Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein in 1967 for US $ 5 million from the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund .

This made the portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci the most expensive painting to date .

literature

• Martin Kemp : Leonardo . C. H. Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56821-3
• Ingeborg Walter , Roberto Zapperi : The portrait of the beloved: Stories of love from Petrarch to Titian . C. H. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55502-2
• Charles Nicholl : Leonardo da Vinci - The biography . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-10-052405-8
• Carlo Pedretti : Leonardo; a study in chronology and style . University of California Press, Berkeley 1973, ISBN 0-520-02420-6
• Kia Vahland : Leonardo da Vinci and women - An artist biography. Insel-Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-458-17787-6

Web links

Commons : Portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• “Portrait of the Ginevra de 'Benci” on the website of the National Gallery of Art , English, accessed on June 12, 2011
• Portrait of Ginevra de 'Benci at Zeno.org .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christiane Kruse, Felix Thürlemann : Portrait - Landscape - Interior . In: Literature and Anthropology , Volume 4, Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 1999, p. 228 f, ISBN 978-3-8233-5703-2
2. ^ Andreas Beyer: The portrait in painting . Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2002, p. 72, ISBN 978-3-7774-9490-6
3. ↑ Barbara Hüttel, Richard Hüttel, Jeanette Kohl (ed.): Re-Visions - on the topicality of art history . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002, p. 63 f, ISBN 978-3-05-003597-0
4. ↑ Especially on the reverse side painting Christiane J. Hessler: Zum Paragone. Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry in the Quattrocento Literature . De Gruyter Verlag, Berlin, 2014, pp. 477–625, ISBN 978-3-05-006100-9
5. ↑ Walter / Zapperi p. 45
6. ↑ Walter / Zapperi p. 57