Ginevra de' Benci, a young Florentine noblewoman

Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de' Benci, c. 1474/1478, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

Leonardo da Vinci painted this portrait of Ginevra de' Benci, a young Florentine noblewoman who, at the age of sixteen, married Luigi Niccolini in 1474. The work may have been an engagement or wedding portrait, or it may have been commissioned by Bernardo Bembo, the Venetian Ambassador to Florence and Ginevra's close friend and admirer. On the reverse side of the painting, a wreath of laurel and palm encircles a sprig of juniper and a scroll bears the Latin inscription, "Beauty Adorns Virtue."