Fra Filippo Lippi, Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement, c. 1440-44, tempera on wood, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889

Selected Works

From Cassone to Poesia:
Paintings of Love and Marriage

Portrait of a Woman and a Man at a Casement

One of the greatest Florentine portraits of its time, this groundbreaking work is the earliest surviving double portrait in Italian art. Although the coat of arms under the man's hand cannot be definitively identified, it may be that of the Scolari family of Florence, in which case the couple are probably Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who married in 1436. The woman is wearing the sumptuous clothing and jewelry of a newlywed. Her overdress is lined with fur, and the sleeves of her costly underdress are woven with loops of gold. Her headdress—known as a sella—is studded with pearls, which also spell out lealtà (loyalty) on the drapery over her wrist. Numerous questions about this work continue to puzzle scholars: is the woman in fact a bride, a new mother, or perhaps commemorated in death? (The possible answers involve the suggested dates of the painting.) Why is the man shown as a subsidiary figure, and why do their gazes not meet?

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