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Shown from the waist up, a young, pale-skinned woman faces our left in profile, filling the height of this vertical portrait painting. She is brightly lit from the left and set against an inky black background. A faint eyebrow arches over the green eye we can see, and her blush pink lips are closed. Her auburn-red hair is pulled back with a few loose strands brushing her pale cheek. A cluster of jewels, like a brooch, is affixed to a thin, black band that encircles her brow, over her ear. The brooch has an azure-blue jewel over a knot of four topaz-brown gems, all set in gold. Four pink pearls hang from the bottom edge, and a banner with the words “MERITO ET TEMPORE” intertwines among the jewels along the top. Long, black loops hang from the headband to brush the woman’s shoulder. The headband wraps over an elaborate headdress that covers the back of her head like a cap. The headdress is a golden net adorned with pearls, garnets, and other gems. A thick ponytail falls down her back past her waist, and is wrapped with crisscrossing strands of black and white pearls. Her dress has a low-cut, square neckline, a tight-fitting bodice, and a flaring skirt. The fabric is patterned with stylized flowers and leaves outlined in brown against honey gold. A strand of gleaming white pearls hangs around her thin, long neck over a gold chain with a pendant made up of black and ruby-red gems. One more teardrop-shaped pearl hangs from the bottom of the pendant. A gem-studded, gold belt wraps around her waist. A red carnation is tucked into the belt near her elbow. The sleeve we can see is tied onto the bodice at the shoulder with black cord over cream-white fabric, which cascades out from the wide seams across the shoulder and down the back of the arm.

Ambrogio de Predis

Bianca Maria Sforza, probably 1493

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 18

Medium

oil on poplar panel

Dimensions

overall: 51 x 32.5 cm (20 1/16 x 12 13/16 in.)

framed: 73.8 x 54.1 x 7 cm (29 1/16 x 21 5/16 x 2 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.53

Artists / Makers

Ambrogio de Predis (artist) Milanese, c. 1455 - after 1508

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

upper center on headdress is the Sforza motto: MERITO ET TEMPORE (With merit and time)

Provenance

Private collection, England; purchased summer 1888 by Dr. Friedrich Lippmann [1838-1903], Berlin; by inheritance to his son, Friedrich Lippmann, Berlin;[1] acquired 1904 on joint account by (Durlacher Brothers, New York) and (P & D Colnaghi's, London and New York); sold 1904 to (Eugène Fischhof, Paris and New York); acquired 1904 from or through (Fischhof) by Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] Describing Italian paintings in private Berlin collections, Fritz Harck, "Quadri di maestri italiani in possesso di private a Berlino," Arch 2 (1889): 213, states that Lippmann, the director of the Kupferstichkabinett (and a frequent traveler for personal and institutional acquisitions), had bought the portrait in England in summer 1888. Fern Rusk Shapley (Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:382 n. 8) speculates that the painting may have been among those confiscated from the Sforza family in Milan by King Louis XII of France in 1499. She cites as evidence an inventory of Italian portraits belonging to his queen, Anne de Bretagne, which includes an "autre tableau sur boys peint d'une autre femme de Italie, ayant les cheveux troussés, et dessus ung chappelet faict en fasson de perles" (Jean Adhémar, "Une galerie de portraits italiens à Amboise en 1500," Gazette des Beaux Arts 86, no. 1281 [October 1975]: 102). But the reference could describe any of a large number of portraits produced in Milan in the late fifteenth century. Nor can another reference--specifically to a portrait of Bianca Maria Sforza--be definitely connected with the NGA painting; the commentator, Marcantonio Michiel, describes, in the house of Taddeo Contarini in Venice in 1525, a "retratto in profilo insino alle spalle de Madonna...fiola del signor Lodovico da Milano maritata nello Imperatore Massimiliano fu de mano de...Milanese" (Notizia d'opere di disegno, 2nd rev. ed., ed Gustavo Frizzoni, Bologna, 1884: 166). But this portrait of Bianca Maria, whom Michiel wrongly identifies as Ludovico's daughter rather than his niece, is specifically said to be only bust-length ("alle spalle").

Associated Names

Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., P. & D.
Durlacher Brothers
Fischhof, Eugène
Lippmann, Friedrich
Lippmann, Friedrich, Dr.
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1898: Pictures by Masters of the Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1898, no. 51.

2011: Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, The National Gallery, London, 2011-2012, no. 8, repro.

2013: Mattia Corvino e Firenze: Arte e Umanesimo alla Corte del Re di Ungheria [Matthias Corvinus and Florence: Art and Humanism in the court of the King of Hungary], Museo di San Marco, Florence, 2013-2014, no. 92, repro.

2019: The Last Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambition of Maximilian I, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2019-2020, no. 58, repro.

Bibliography

1916: Berenson, Bernard, and William Roberts. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: Early Italian and Spanish Schools. Philadelphia, 1916: unpaginated, repro.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 144, repro.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 6.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 13, repro.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 65.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 301, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 105.

1968: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:109.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 93, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 274, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:380-382; 2:pl. 275.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 112, no. 85, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 319, repro.

2002: Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 95.

2002: Venturelli, Paola. Leonardo da Vinci e le arti preziose: Milano tra XV e XVI secolo. Venice, 2002: 165-170, especially 166 and 168, fig. 45.

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: 596-601, color repro.