La belle Ferroniere

Leonardo da Vinci

Contemporary-Art.org
Keywords: belleFerroniere

Work Overview

Artist Leonardo da Vinci or his Milanese circle
Year 1490–1496
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions 62 cm × 44 cm (24 in × 17 in)
Location Louvre, Paris


La belle ferronnière is a portrait of a lady, usually attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger (a ferronnier), was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. The tale is a romantic legend of revenge in which the aggrieved husband intentionally infects himself with syphilis, which he passes to the king through infecting his wife.[citation needed]


Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine, has also been known by this name. This was once believed to be a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani—one of the mistresses of Lodovico 'il Moro' Sforza, Duke of Milan.[1] The narrative and the title were applied to Lady with an Ermine when it was in Princess Czartoryski's collection, and became confused with "La Belle Ferronniere" by the presence in this image also of a jewel worn on a delicate chain across the forehead, called a ferronnière.


Although the model of the painting "La Belle Ferronniere" is still shrouded in mystery, the landmark exhibition "Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan" (National Gallery, London, 9 Nov. 2011 – 5 Feb. 2012) listed the portrait as possibly depicting Beatrice d'Este, wife of Ludovico Sforza.[2] This challenges the portrait's earlier attribution to Lucrezia Crivelli, a mistress of Ludovico.[3]


Bernard Berenson attributed this portrait to Bernardino de' Conti.[4] Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was suggested by Herbert Cook, who retracted his opinion, seeing Leonardo's own hand, in 1904.[5]


A later version of the painting, on canvas,[6] had been offered to the Kansas City Art Institute as the original, but was identified as a copy, on the basis of a photograph, by Sir Joseph Duveen, who permitted his remarks to be published in the New York World in 1920; the owner, Mrs Andrée Lardoux Hahn, sued for defamation of property in a notorious court case,[7] which involved many of the major connoisseurs of the day,[8] inspecting the two paintings side by side at the Louvre; the case was eventually heard in New York before a jury selected for not knowing anything of Leonardo or Morellian connoisseurship, and settled for $60,000 plus court expenses, which were considerable.[9][10] The owner's account, Harry Hahn's The Rape of La Belle (1946) is a classic of populist conspiracy theory applied to the art world. After decades in an Omaha vault, the Hahn La Belle was sold at auction by Sotheby's on January 28, 2010 as "by a follower of Leonardo, probably before 1750"; it brought 1.5 million dollars, a price three times higher than Sotheby's pre-sale estimate. The buyer was an unidentified American collector.[11][12]


A 19th-century copy of La Belle Ferronnière is conserved in the Musée des beaux-arts, Chambéry.[13] The Louvre painting is identified in pre-Revolutionary inventories of the French royal collection.




-----------------------------------------------------
Cecilia Gallerani was Ludovico Sforza's first mistress and Leonardo painted her in the form of Lady with the Ermine. Later, the Duke was to take another mistress, Lucrezia Crivelli, and she is thought to be the subject of this painting. An alternative suggestion, though less accepted, is that this painting is Isabella of Aragon. 


This may, or may not be, Leonardo's work. The pose is stiff, which would be unusual for Leonardo, and the woman's features are thicker and heavier than those normally found in his portraits. Bernard Berenson once said of this portrait, "one would regret to have to accept this as Leonardo's own work." Those in favour of this being a genuine Leonardo point to the knotted ribbons on her shoulders and the cords around her neck which do resemble Leonardo's style. 


It may be that this work was done by an apprentice, or Leonardo may have been forced to do some traditional Milanese courtly portraiture at the whim of his patron; tradition demanded an unnatural pose as shown in this painting. It also placed great importance on showy dresses, jewellery and other decorations, as shown in this work. Another possible answer is that this was a joint project carried out by several artists at the School of Leonardo, and based on a design by him.


Done around 1495 this painting takes its name from the ferroniere the sitter wears around her brow, a common Lombard fashion. In the nineteenth century this work was much admired and widely copied, though no other artist managed to capture the beautiful modelling of the face. It is thought the painting may have originally been balanced with an architectural element on the left but this is one work over which there are more questions than answers. 


-----------------------------------------------------
A painting by a follower of Leonardo da Vinci, which was once thought to be done by the Renaissance master himself, sold at auction for $1.5 million, three tmes its estimate price.


Sotheby's said the work, "La Belle Ferronniere," which was the subject of a slander trial in the 1920s, two books and which had been locked away in a vault for decades, sparked spirited bidding during the auction of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture that totaled $61,599,250.


"Everybody was interested in its history ... The fact is, at the end of the day it was beautiful. It shone through everything to be just a very potent, moving picture and the buyer had no interest in the speculation or in whom the artist was," George Wachter, Sotheby's co-chairman of the Old Master Painting Worldwide, said in an interview.


"He just loved the painting. He thought it was a powerful, beautiful work of art," he added about the private collector who bought the portrait thought to be of Lucrezia Crivelli, who was a mistress of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan.


Another version of the painting, which experts and scholars believe was done by Leonardo da Vinci, hangs in the Louvre in Paris.


The painting was given to Harry Hahn, an American serviceman during World War One and his French bride as a wedding present. It was thought to have been done by Leonardo and authenticated by a French art expert.


After he returned to the United States in 1920 and tried to sell the painting to the Kansas City Art Institute, a leading art dealer, Joseph Duveen, said it was a fake and the deal fell through.


Hahn's wife sued Duveen for slander in a case that riveted the art world. The jury failed to reach a verdict and Duveen eventually settled out of court, paying $60,000.


Experts believe the portrait must date before 1750 because it contains lead-tin yellow, a color that was used in paintings up until the late 17th century.


"It was about wanting the painting, not about speculation," said Wachter, adding he was pleased with the results of the overall sale.


"I felt very pleased with the way the market responded to it. It was extremely successful," he said.


Wachter described the art market as very potent and strong and with many new private collectors.


"People are looking to buy good art. It is price sensitive. They know what they want and they know at what price they want it," he explained. "It is a controlled, discriminating market."