Lot Essay
The original, oil on panel, 63 x 45 cm, in is the Louvre, Paris. Leonardo probably painted the portrait in Milan and took it with him when he entered in the service of Francis I. In the 17th century, when it was described in the royal collection of Fontainebleau, the sitter was held to be the Duchess of Mantoa. In the 18th century the sitter received the name still in use, 'la belle Ferronière' (the beautiful wife of the iron trader), as a consequence of a confusion with another portrait in the same collection.