Giovanni Boltraffio

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was among the strongest painters to come out of Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop in Milan. His portraits of young men and women, often in profile or half-length, and his Madonnas share Leonardo’s gentle faces and dark backgrounds, but with crisper outlines and a cooler, more polished finish.

Born in Milan around 1467 into an aristocratic family, he is recorded in Leonardo’s studio in 1491. He worked in Bologna around 1500 for the Casio family, and his largest altarpiece, the Pala Casio, is now in the Louvre. Several paintings once given to Leonardo have been attributed to him at one time or another, among them the Madonna Litta in the Hermitage. His Portrait of a Man in Profile and a Virgin and Child are in the National Gallery, London. He died in 1516.

In Portrait of a Young Woman, look at the sharp edges that set him apart from his master’s soft sfumato.