Portrait of Lionel d'Este

In 1441 the ruler of Ferrara, Niccolo the Third d'Este, set two painters against each other and made his own son the prize. Pisanello and the Venetian Jacopo Bellini each painted the young man in profile, and a local poet later recorded that Bellini won. Bellini's portrait is lost. This one, by the man who supposedly came second, is the one that survived. Pisanello shows Leonello d'Este in sharp profile against a screen of flowers, his features cut as clean as a coin, which suits the name closely: Leonello means little lion, and his tight golden curls are combed up into something near a mane.