Audio Stop 411

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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

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 6

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Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci by Leonardo da Vinci. Oil on panel. Painted around 1474-1478. The painted surface is about 1 foot 3 inches square.

This description is about 2 minutes long.

A young white woman is shown from chest up, in front of a landscape with trees and water in the distance. The color palette is dominated by coppery shades of brown, with touches of pale blue.

We’ll start by describing the woman and then move on to the background.

The woman’s shoulders are angled away from us to our right, while her head is turned so she looks towards us: she has heavy-lidded, hazel eyes, under delicate, faint brows. Her skin is chalk-white and porcelain smooth. There are faint shadows under wide, rounded cheekbones. She has a straight nose, and her pale pink lips rest in a line. Copper-colored curls frame her face and fall to her jawline. Behind the curls, her hair is smoothly pulled back under a chocolate brown scarf or headdress at the back of her head.

She wears a russet-brown garment with a low-cut, square neckline edged with gold; her upper chest is covered with a transparent white fabric, like muslin or gauze. The bodice is laced at the front with sky blue laces – which echo the blue in the background.

Immediately behind the woman’s head and shoulders is a dense and prickly bronze-colored bush. To our right of the bush, a landscape stretches into the misty distance. There are a couple of slender trees with rust-colored leaves. Beyond them is a stretch of blue water reflecting trees on the far shore. And, even farther, layers of misty hills become more and more indistinct under a pale, smoky blue sky.

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