Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens

In 1518 Cardinal Bibbiena arranged a present for Francis I of France, who liked portraits of beautiful women. The subject chosen was Isabel de Requesens, wife of the Spanish viceroy of Naples, which meant a painter had to travel down from Rome to draw her from life. Raphael did not go. He had more commissions than he could carry out, and by then most of the work leaving his shop was executed by assistants. Giulio Romano, about nineteen at the time, did the painting, and Raphael is generally thought to have worked over the head himself. The Louvre lists both names. For three centuries the sitter was called Joanna of Aragon, and that wrong name still travels with copies and prints of the picture.