Portrait of a Woman and a Man at Casement by Fra Filippo Lippi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement
ca. 1440


Object Details

Artist: Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florence ca. 1406–1469 Spoleto)

Date: ca. 1440

Medium: Tempera on wood

Dimensions: 25 1/4 x 16 1/2 in. (64.1 x 41.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889

Accession Number: 89.15.19


This is the earliest surviving double portrait in Italy, the first to show the sitters in a domestic setting, and the first with a view onto a landscape. The woman, dressed luxuriously ala francese, her sleeve embroidered with letters spelling "lealta" (faithful), is observed by a man—her betrothed?—appearing at a window, his hands on an identifying coat of arms. The two figures may be Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who were married about 1439. Lippi’s task was complicated by the Italian preference for the profile view as opposed to the three-quarter view preferred north of the Alps.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436896