Piero Della Francesca's Double Portrait

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In the middle of the 15th century Fra Filippo Lippi painted one of the earliest surviving double portraits from the Italian Renaissance. This Portrait of a Woman and Man holds many mysteries, unlike another double portrait by Piero della Francesca painted roughly twenty-five years later. Francesca’s double portrait is titled “Battista Sforza and Federico Da Montefeltro”, which is completely opposite from the vague title given to Fra Filippo Lippi’s painting. Each painting is completed on wood, however Francesca’s is oil, while Lippi’s is tempera. These paintings are very similar, in that they are each a man and woman facing each other. This leaves the subjects very disengaged from the viewer and is also a quite traditional type of format, showing only the profile of each person. There are many out of the ordinary facts about Francesca’s while there are only many speculations about Portrait of a Woman and Man. For example, it is known that Francesca painted Federico Da Montefeltro in profile format to hide his two scars. He was missing his right eye and had also broken his nose. Lippi’s painting his rumored to be of …show more content…

It is known that Battista Sforza is dressed this way because the portrait was created as memorabilia of her marriage. This is more relevant in Lippi’s painting because it suggests that this may be a portrait of a woman as newlywed, because Florentine prohibited women to wear anything that referred to the status of her wealth for more than three years after her marriage. Each woman is wearing a set of pearls around her neck, jewelry that she would not be able to wear unless a celebration of marriage was occurring. The women also appear to have comparable features, fair skin and red hair, which is another indication that they are from the same time period and geographical area. The men are also dressed similarly; they are each wearing the same type of hat that is also the same

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