More

We use some essential cookies to make this website work. We'd like to set other cookies to remember your settings, measure website use and inform our marketing. We also use content from other sites in our pages, and those sites may also set cookies. More information can be found in our cookies policy.

55 Portrait of Bianca Maria Sforza

Bianca Maria Sforza (1472–1510) was the daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan. In 1494, when she was twenty-one years old, she married Maximilian, who became Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1508. Two years before their marriage, Maximilian had secretly commissioned a drawing of her from the Milanese painter Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis. That drawing has not survived, but the artist is known to have produced several portraits of her based on it. This work is thought to be a copy of one of those portraits. Her hairstyle, garments, and accessories reflect Milanese court fashions of the 1490s and are stylistically similar to those elements depicted in Leonardo’s La Belle Ferronnière.