Bianca Maria Sforza

Bernardino de' Conti was a Milanese painter active around 1490–1522, a follower of Leonardo da Vinci who produced numerous portraits and devotional panels in the Leonardesque manner. His Bianca Maria Sforza, now in the Louvre, depicts Bianca Maria Sforza (1472–1510), niece of Ludovico il Moro who became Holy Roman Empress by marrying Maximilian I in 1493. Bianca Maria's portrait was among the most important dynastic commissions in Milanese painting of the period, serving as a formal record of a woman who bridged the Sforza and Habsburg dynasties at the height of Italian Renaissance court culture. De' Conti's Leonardesque style — the soft, atmospheric modeling of flesh, the careful rendering of elaborate court costume and hair ornaments — makes the portrait one of the most refined examples of Milanese female portraiture from the period of Leonardo's direct influence on the city's painters.

De' Conti employs the Leonardesque Milanese portrait technique — soft, gradual modeling of flesh against a dark background, with exquisite attention to the elaborate hairstyle and jeweled ornaments that were the defining markers of high Sforza court fashion. The three-quarter pose and frontal gaze follow the portrait conventions Leonardo established in Milan, softened by the characteristic atmospheric warmth of the Leonardesque tradition.