Portrait of Ginevra Bentivoglio

1480 · National Gallery of Art, Washington

portrait

This is among the finest examples of quattrocento profile potraiture to have survived. The subject was the wife of the tyrant of Bologna (the city walls of which may be seen in the background) and was an outstanding patroness of the arts. The companion-piece in the same museum represents Giovanni II Bentivoglio.

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About the Artist

Ercole de' Roberti

1456 – 1494

Italian painter, active mainly in Ferrara. He succeeded Cosmè Tura as court painter to the Este in 1486, but little is known of his life. Earlier he appears to have assisted Frencesco Cossa for some years, and with Cossa and Tura he ranks as the leading artist of the 15th century Ferrarese school. The only picture reasonably certainly his is the altarpiece with a Madonna Enthroned with Saints (1480) painted for Santa Maria in Porto at Ravenna and now in the Brera, Milan. Other works, however, can be confidently given to him because of his distinctive style.

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