Tête de femme

Giampietrino was a Milanese painter closely associated with Leonardo da Vinci, whose female heads he copied and adapted throughout his career. This Tête de Femme belongs to a large group of paintings — often variations on Leonardesque prototypes — that circulated widely in the sixteenth century as affordable devotional objects. Giampietrino's versions are distinguished by their warm colouring and soft, idealised modelling derived directly from Leonardo's example.

The woman's face is rendered with the soft, slightly humid modelling characteristic of the Leonardesque school in Milan. Sfumato transitions between light and shadow are carefully controlled. The three-quarter pose with slightly downcast eyes — a formula derived from Leonardo's female heads — is handled with the assured repetition of a painter who returned to this type throughout his career.