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Bianca Maria Sforza
Giovanni Ambrogio de Predisprobably 1493
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: Bianca Maria Sforza
- Creator: Ambrogio de Predis
- Date Created: probably 1493
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 51 x 32.5 cm (20 1/16 x 12 13/16 in.) framed: 73.8 x 54.1 x 7 cm (29 1/16 x 21 5/16 x 2 3/4 in.)
- Provenance: Private collection, England; purchased summer 1888 by Dr. Friedrich Lippmann [1838-1903], Berlin; by inheritance to his son, Friedrich Lippmann, Berlin;[1] acquired 1904 on joint account by (Durlacher Brothers, New York) and (P & D Colnaghi's, London and New York); sold 1904 to (Eugène Fischhof, Paris and New York); acquired 1904 from or through (Fischhof) by Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] Describing Italian paintings in private Berlin collections, Fritz Harck, "Quadri di maestri italiani in possesso di private a Berlino," _Arch_ 2 (1889): 213, states that Lippmann, the director of the Kupferstichkabinett (and a frequent traveler for personal and institutional acquisitions), had bought the portrait in England in summer 1888. Fern Rusk Shapley (_Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:382 n. 8) speculates that the painting may have been among those confiscated from the Sforza family in Milan by King Louis XII of France in 1499. She cites as evidence an inventory of Italian portraits belonging to his queen, Anne de Bretagne, which includes an "autre tableau sur boys peint d'une autre femme de Italie, ayant les cheveux troussés, et dessus ung chappelet faict en fasson de perles" (Jean Adhémar, "Une galerie de portraits italiens à Amboise en 1500," _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ 86, no. 1281 [October 1975]: 102). But the reference could describe any of a large number of portraits produced in Milan in the late fifteenth century. Nor can another reference--specifically to a portrait of Bianca Maria Sforza--be definitely connected with the NGA painting; the commentator, Marcantonio Michiel, describes, in the house of Taddeo Contarini in Venice in 1525, a "retratto in profilo insino alle spalle de Madonna...fiola del signor Lodovico da Milano maritata nello Imperatore Massimiliano fu de mano de...Milanese" (_Notizia d'opere di disegno_, 2nd rev. ed., ed Gustavo Frizzoni, Bologna, 1884: 166). But this portrait of Bianca Maria, whom Michiel wrongly identifies as Ludovico's daughter rather than his niece, is specifically said to be only bust-length ("alle spalle").
- Medium: oil on poplar panel
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