Portrait of a Lady

Lorenzo Costa, a Ferrarese painter who became the leading artist of Bologna in the early sixteenth century, painted this Portrait of a Lady around 1490. Costa's portrait style blended the sharp Ferrarese linearity of his training with the softer, more luminous approach he developed in Bologna. His portraits of Bolognese and Ferrarese nobility are among the finest of the period. This work belongs to the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the preceding century were synthesized into works of monumental clarity and ideal beauty.

Oil on panel with refined modeling and warm flesh tones. The portrait combines Ferrarese precision in drawing with the luminous palette that Costa developed in his Bolognese maturity.