Ritratto di dama

By the 1550s Bronzino was the portrait painter to the Medici court in Florence, and a likeness from his circle carried the polish of the duke's household, skin like cool marble and every jewel given the same even attention. This woman is dressed to signal exactly that rank, her auburn hair bound in a dark jewelled headdress, a fine chain of pearls at her throat. She holds still and unreadable, in the way the court liked its women shown. Who she was, no record says, and the attribution has drifted too, long given to Bronzino from life and now often placed instead with a painter working close beside him.