Portrait of Doña Isabel de Requesens y Enríquez de Cardona-Anglesola

In 1518 Raphael ran the busiest studio in Rome, too tied up with papal commissions to travel, so when a portrait of the vicereine of Naples was wanted he sent a gifted young assistant, Giulio Romano, south to paint it, keeping the face for his own hand, as surviving documents confirm. The sitter is Isabel de Requesens, wife of the Spanish viceroy, though for centuries she was misidentified as another celebrated beauty, Joanna of Aragon. She meets your eye in deep red velvet, her hair loose, a garden loggia behind her. The finished picture travelled north as a diplomatic gift to King Francis I of France, which is how a portrait begun in Naples came to rest in the French royal collection, and today in the Louvre's outpost at Lens.