Ritratto di donna (Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne ?)

Jean Perréal's Ritratto di donna, possibly identified as Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne, from around 1512 and now at the Uffizi Gallery, is one of the rare surviving portraits by this elusive French court painter. Perréal served as painter and valet de chambre to three successive French kings — Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I — and was among the most admired portraitists in northern Europe in the years around 1500–1515. He visited Italy multiple times and is recorded as having met Leonardo da Vinci. If the identification as Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne is correct, the sitter was a French noblewoman who in 1518 married Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino — a union of enormous dynastic significance. The Uffizi's holding of the portrait connects it to Medici collecting practice and gives it significance as a document of Franco-Italian political culture in the early sixteenth century.

Perréal's portrait technique combines Franco-Flemish precision in the rendering of dress and jewellery with a softness of facial modelling that reflects Italian influence. The three-quarter pose is standard for court portraiture of the period. Colour is restrained and elegant with careful observation of the sitter's complexion and the texture of costly fabrics.