Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description.
The portrait is a mixed media drawing in pen and brown ink with red, black and white chalk, on vellum, 33 by 23.9 centimetres (10 by 9 in) which has been laid down on an oak board.There are signs of restoration with thin paint applied with a brush. Three stitch holes in the left-hand margin of the vellum, indicate that the leaf was once in a bound volume.It represents a girl in her early teens, depicted in profile, the usual way in which Italian artists of the 15th century portraited women. The girl's dress and hairstyle indicate that she was a member of the Court of Milan during the 1490s. If it truly is a Renaissance work, it would have been executed in the 1490s according to Kemp and Cotte. If the subject is Bianca Sforza it would date from 1496, the year of her marriage and her death.
Reflecting the subject of an Italian woman of high nobility, Kemp named the portrait La Bella Principessa, although acknowledging that Sforza ladies were not princesses.
Milan vellum Sforza mixed media princess