Self-portrait

By 1720 the Medici had ruled Florence for the better part of three centuries, and the family was quietly dying out. Giovanna Fratellini belonged to that late court world. Born in Florence in 1666, she served as a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere and became the city's most sought-after portraitist in miniature and pastel. She painted this at 54. She shows herself at work, palette and brushes in hand, an oval miniature set on the easel before her, the very craft that made her name. Her likeness entered the collection of artists' portraits that another Medici, Cardinal Leopoldo, had begun assembling a few decades earlier, which is why a court painter still hangs among the great masters at the Uffizi.