03 — ARTWORK
Portrait of Leonello d’Este
- MEDIUM
- Tempera on wood, 26 x 18 cm
- TYPE
- Portrait
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 694 × 950 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
PortraitThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). of Leonello d’Este c. 1444 TemperaA method of painting in which the pigments are mixed with an emulsion of water and egg yolks or whole eggs (sometimes glue or milk). Tempera was widely used in Italian art in the 14th and 15th centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, then being replaced by oil paint. Tempera colors are bright and translucent, though because the paint dried very quickly there is little time to blend them, graduated tones being created by adding lighter or darker dots or lines of color to an area of dried paint. on wood, 26 x 18 cm Accademia Carrara, Bergamo
The first half of the fifteenth century saw the growth and development of portraiture as a genreIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature.. Among the artists who practiced portraiture were Jacopo Bellini, Masaccio, Domenico Veneziano, and Pisanello. Pisanello depicts his patron Leonello d'Este, Lord of Ferrara, in profile, giving a characteristic view of the sitter. Pisanello's style was very well suited for this northern Italian court.
Leonello d'Este (died 1450) was born into one of the oldest families whose origins date back to the time of Charlemagne in the early 9th century when they settled in Lombardy. The area controlled by the Este family had grown from century to century. They were Lords of Ferrara and its hinterland (Modena and Reggio). In the QuattrocentoThe 15th century in Italian art. The term is often used of the new style of art that was characteristic of the Early Renaissance, in particular works by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Fra Angelico and others. It was preceded by the Trecento and followed by the Cinquecento. they earned a reputation as important patrons of the arts and sciences.
This painting has been associated with the 1441 competition held between Jacopo Bellini and Pisanello to paint Leonello's likeness. However, recent research makes it unlikely and dates the painting somewhat later, c. 1444.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r04d686cc4bcdab,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Portrait of Leonello d’Este by PISANELLO},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-13},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/pisanello-r10b2ed96afd73f/portrait-of-leonello-deste-r04d686cc4bcdab},
urldate = {2026-09-13},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-13. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
