Leonardo’s first nonreligious painting as the portrait of a melancholy young woman with a moonlike face glowing against the backdrop of spiky juniper tree fig. 14) Although somewhat listless and unengaging on first glance, ‘Genevra de’ Benci’ has wonderful Leonardo touches, such as the lustrous, tightly curled ringlets of hair and unconventional three-quarters pose. . . .
Ginevra de’ Benci was the daughter of a prominent Florentine banker whose aristocratic family was allied with the Medici and second only to them in wealth. In early 1474, when she was sixteen, she married Luigi Niccolini, who at thirty two was a recent widower. . . .
Leonardo painted Bembo’s emblem of a laurel and palm wreath on the reverse of the portrait, and it encircles a sprig of juniper, in Italian ‘ginepro’ and thus a reference to Ginevra’s name. Woven through the wreath and juniper sprig is a banner proclaiming, “Beauty Adorns Virtue,” which attests her virtuous nature, and an infrared analysis shows Bembo’s motto, “Virtue and Honor,” had been written beneath it. Suffused with the muted and misty dusk light that Leonardo loved, the painting shows Ginevra looking pale, and melancholy. There is a vacant trance-like quality to her, echoed by the dreamlike quality of the distant landscape, that seems to go deeper than merely the physical illness her husband reported. ~ Page 63/65
The most arresting features of the portrait are Ginevra’s eyes. The lids are studiously modeled to appear three-dimensional, but this also makes them feel heavy, adding to her somber demeanor. Her gaze looks distracted and indifferent, as if she’s looking through us and seeing nothing. Her right eye seems to wander to the distance. At first her gaze seems diverted and looking down and to her left. But the more you stare at each eye separately, the more each seems to focus back on you. ~ Page 66
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Dinesh said:
Ginevra de’ Benci was the daughter of a prominent Florentine banker whose aristocratic family was allied with the Medici and second only to them in wealth. In early 1474, when she was sixteen, she married Luigi Niccolini, who at thirty two was a recent widower. . . .
Leonardo painted Bembo’s emblem of a laurel and palm wreath on the reverse of the portrait, and it encircles a sprig of juniper, in Italian ‘ginepro’ and thus a reference to Ginevra’s name. Woven through the wreath and juniper sprig is a banner proclaiming, “Beauty Adorns Virtue,” which attests her virtuous nature, and an infrared analysis shows Bembo’s motto, “Virtue and Honor,” had been written beneath it. Suffused with the muted and misty dusk light that Leonardo loved, the painting shows Ginevra looking pale, and melancholy. There is a vacant trance-like quality to her, echoed by the dreamlike quality of the distant landscape, that seems to go deeper than merely the physical illness her husband reported. ~ Page 63/65
The most arresting features of the portrait are Ginevra’s eyes. The lids are studiously modeled to appear three-dimensional, but this also makes them feel heavy, adding to her somber demeanor. Her gaze looks distracted and indifferent, as if she’s looking through us and seeing nothing. Her right eye seems to wander to the distance. At first her gaze seems diverted and looking down and to her left. But the more you stare at each eye separately, the more each seems to focus back on you. ~ Page 66
Roger (Grisly) said:
Percy Schramm said: