Portrait of a Woman, Possibly a Nun of San Secondo; (verso) Scene in Grisaille

A tiny, luminous portrait of a woman in profile, her pale features delicately modelled against a dark ground, the refinement of execution belying the miniature scale. Jacometto Veneziano was one of the most technically accomplished small-panel painters in late-fifteenth-century Venice, and this jewel-like portrait — with its hidden grisaille scene on the reverse — shows why his work was prized by the most discriminating collectors of the Renaissance.