Portrait of the court jester Gonella

This remarkable portrait of the court jester Gonella, attributed to Jean Fouquet and dating to around 1447, depicts a buffoon at the Este court in Ferrara. Fouquet, the greatest French painter of the 15th century, visited Italy around 1445-1447 where he painted a lost portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. The vivid characterization of the jester's shrewd expression beneath his comic costume makes this one of the most psychologically penetrating portraits of the period.

The portrait combines Fouquet's distinctly French clarity of form with the Italian interest in three-dimensional modeling, using a restricted palette and strong directional lighting to focus on the jester's alert, knowing expression.