Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description.
The painting portrays Giovanna degli Albizzi, a Florentine noblewoman who was married to Lorenzo Tornabuoni. She died in childbirth in 1488, the year specified on the cartellino (Italian for a slip of paper) in the background. It was commissioned by her husband, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and the portrait was actually painted about two years after her death, around 1489-90, for the Tornabuoni family. She has been identified thanks to her other portraits in the Tornabuoni Chapel and a medal of Giovanna, also by Ghirlandaio, where she has the same hair style.It depicts the young woman from the side in a linear, ornamental arrangement which was common for the time. This profile portrait was the common style of 15th century Florentine portraiture. The figure is wearing precious clothes including a gamurra vest. On the right, behind her, are a hanging coral necklace (perhaps a rosary), a partly closed prayer book, and a Latin inscription, taken from an epigram by the 1st century AD poet Martial. She also holds a handkerchief. The figure of Giovanna is idealized in appearance and proportion which was the tradition of the time.
Tornabuoni Chapel cartellino Albizzi Martial epigram