In the context of this artwork, discuss the The Lady of the Description.
The subject has been identified with reasonable certainty as Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo's Milanese employer, Ludovico Sforza. She looks to her left at something out of frame, toward the light, where the biographer Walter Isaacson suggests Ludovico is. Following the marriage of Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan and Gian Galeazzo Sforza, her 'Spanish style' dress would have been particularly fashionable. She has a silk sbernia on over her left shoulder, though Leonardo has simplified the traditional manner of wearing—where it would be draped over both shoulders—potentially to avoid too much complication in the various elements of the painting. Her right shoulder shows an ornately embroidered gold band over a velvet dress. Again, Leonardo has simplified the design, by having the left shoulder band covered by the sbernia, so as to not take away from the animal's detailed head. Her coiffure, known as a coazzone, confines her hair smoothly to her head with two bands of it bound on either side of her face and a long plait at the back. Her hair is held in place by a fine gauze veil with a woven border of gold-wound threads, a black band, and a sheath over the plait.As in many of Leonardo's paintings, the composition comprises a pyramidic spiral and the sitter is caught in the motion of turning to her left, reflecting Leonardo's lifelong preoccupation with the dynamics of movement. The three-quarter profile portrait was one of his many innovations. Il Moro's court poet, Bernardo Bellincioni, was the first to propose that Cecilia was poised as if listening to an unseen speaker. This work in particular shows Leonardo's expertise in painting the human form. The artist painted Cecilia's outstretched hand with a lot of detail, including the shape of each fingernail, the lines around her knuckles, and even the way the tendon in her bent finger moved as it bentA recent study brings to the forefront and supports another so far little-followed hypothesis: the heroic character of Caterina Sforza, the lioness of Romagna, is proposed as being the model of this allegorical representation in which the mental strength and beauty that were attributed to Amazons in mythology.
Milan Ludovico Sforza velvet right Cecilia Gallerani Caterina Sforza Walter Isaacson Bernardo Bellincioni Isabella of Aragon, Duchess of Milan Amazons left Gian Galeazzo Sforza