Portrait of Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci Tile

Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo da Vinci, egg tempera and oil on wood panel, is an early painting by the iconic master of the High Italian Renaissance of a solemn, serious young woman gazing from a detailed, atmospheric landscape. Smoothly modeled in da Vinci’s unique sfumato (“smoky”) chiaroscuro technique, the portrait embodies the individualism and humanistic ideals that emerged during the Florentine Renaissance of art. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was the greatest master of the High Italian Renaissance and quintessential "Renaissance Man" whose work as painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, anatomist and much more is without comparison. Born near Florence, Italy, and apprenticed to the painter Verrocchio, Leonardo invented many new ideas and extended the principles of perspective drawing, aerial perspective, the human figure and anatomy and much else to heights never seen since, during the period of rediscovery of the arts and philosophy of classical antiquity. Widely regarded as possibly the greatest artist who ever lived, Leonardo left very few completed paintings, due to either his restless experiments with painting technique that sometimes failed, or his infamous habit of procrastination.