Image: public domain, courtesy of Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
Ginevra de' Benci
Ginevra was a young woman from Florence, and the spiky juniper bush behind her is a play on her name: in Italian, juniper is “ginepro”. It is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci anywhere in the Americas.
🎧 Audio guide available in the 3D museum
Did you know?
- The back is painted too: laurel and palm around a juniper sprig, with a Latin motto meaning “Beauty adorns virtue”.
- About 200 years ago the bottom of the panel was cut off after damage; it may once have shown her hands.
- Experts found Leonardo’s fingerprints in the paint: he softened edges with his fingers while the paint was still sticky.
- In 1967 the National Gallery paid 5 million dollars for it, then the highest price ever paid for a work of art.
- For centuries it belonged to the Princes of Liechtenstein, who at one time thought it was painted by Lucas Cranach.
- Look to the right of her face: a winding river and a tiny pale blue town lie on the horizon.
About the artist
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was born near the Tuscan town of Vinci, worked in Florence, Milan and Rome, and spent his last years in France.
He painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and filled thousands of notebook pages with ideas about flight, anatomy, water and machines.
He wrote his notes in mirror script, from right to left, and his early biographer Vasari tells that he would buy caged birds at the market just to set them free.
More works
The Assumption of the VirginEl Greco, 1577–79
The Alba MadonnaRaphael, c. 1510
The HarvestersPieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565
View of ToledoEl Greco, c. 1599–1600
Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by ChildrenGian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1616–17
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