Portrait of a Lady

This Portrait of a Lady by Benedetto Ghirlandaio, painted around 1450 and now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, provides evidence of the portraiture practice of a painter long overshadowed by his more celebrated brother Domenico. Benedetto Ghirlandaio worked in Florence as part of the family workshop and in his own right, and this lady's portrait reflects the Florentine fascination with the profile format that dominated Italian portraiture through the mid-fifteenth century. The profile portrait — derived from ancient Roman coin types — presented the sitter in aristocratic, heraldic isolation, stressing lineage and social status rather than individual psychological depth.

Tempera on panel. The lady is shown in strict left profile against a flat, neutral blue ground — the standard Florentine profile portrait format of the period. Her dress features elaborate brocade patterning rendered with fine, minute brushwork.