Portrait of a Lady

Jacometto Veneziano was one of the most refined portrait painters active in Venice in the 1470s–80s, working in a miniaturist scale derived from Flemish precedent. His Portrait of a Lady is among the earliest examples of the female portrait in Venetian painting treating the sitter as an individual rather than an idealised type. Jacometto's portraits are mentioned by Marcantonio Michiel in his notes on private collections, confirming their status as prized cabinet objects among Venetian connoisseurs. The sitter's three-quarter pose and the careful rendering of her headdress and dress situate her within the Venetian merchant patriciate.

Jacometto works on a very small scale, with the refinement of his technique reflecting his practice as a miniaturist as much as a panel painter. Oil glazes build flesh tones of extraordinary delicacy, and the surface has the enamel-like quality characteristic of Flemish-influenced Venetian portraiture in this period. The treatment of light on the sitter's headdress is particularly precise.