Detail of a Portrait of a Woman Attributed to Giovanni di Franco in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 2011

Portrait of a Woman

Artist: Attributed to Giovanni di Franco (Italian, Rovezzano 1425/26–after 1498 Florence)

Medium: Tempera on wood

Dimensions: 16 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. (41.3 x 31.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931

Accession Number: 32.100.98

Gallery Label:

The attribution of this fascinating portrait has been much debated. It is unusual both for the plainness of the sitter and the box-like character of the setting. Was it intended to have funerary connotations, establishing a commemorative function for the portrait, or is the purpose of the emphatic perspective and the cast shadow to assert the illusionistic "presence" of the sitter? The work thus poses fundamental questions about the uses of portraiture in fifteenth-century Florence. The picture dates about 1445–50.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/437859