Portrait of Margherita d'Este, Duchess of Ferrara, née Gonzaga (1564-1618), three-quarter-length, in a white ruff and pink overdress embroidered with lilies-of-the-valley and pearls

A member of the influential Gonzaga dynasty, Margherita was raised in a powerful court deeply engaged in the arts, diplomacy, and religious piety. In 1579, she married Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio. The marriage, politically strategic, was aimed at securing ties between the two families and strengthening the duchy's relationship with the Habsburgs. During her tenure as Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita played a key role in court life and was an active supporter of the visual arts, music and literature, upholding the city’s reputation as a major centre of cultural patronage. The Duke and Duchess’s union was sadly childless as Alfonso II’s previous two marriages had been, and he died in 1597 without an heir, ending the legitimate d’Este line. Dr Adriana Concin-Tavella, to whom we are grateful, has proposed that the ornately embroidered lilies-of-the-valley on Margherita’s dress may have signalled the couple’s hope for children; the flowers were often deployed in the context of marriage, with allusions to purity, joy and fertility (written communication, April 2025).

Of particular interest amongst the Duchess’s jewellery is the opulent pendant hanging from her first string of pearls: a triangular-cut stone set in gold, from which three teardrop pearls are suspended. It is very likely identifiable with a jewel referenced in an inventory of 1597, when upon Alfonso’s II death, a bequest was made to his designated heir: his cousin’s son, Cesare d’Este (1562-1628), who then claimed the duchy of Ferrara before he was forced to retreat by Pope Clement VIII. The document listed gems, rings, necklaces, bracelets and other precious objects, amongst which was a jewel in the shape of a triangle with three teardrop pearls. The Duchess is depicted wearing the jewel on other occasions, for example in a three-quarter-length portrait of the early 1590s by Jacopo Ligozzi (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, inv. no. 453).

Amongst the portraitists active at the courts of Mantua and Ferrara was the Flemish painter Jean Bahuet (Flanders 1552-1597 Mantua), to whom this portrait has been attributed by Dr. Paolo Bertelli (written expertise, 2024). Relatively little is known of the artist's life, but he was documented as being in the Duke’s employ in the 1580s and '90s, receiving payments for portrait commissions and a monthly stipend for expenses. Bertelli proposes that the present portrait was created in the years around 1579, the year of the sitter’s marriage to Alfonso II, when the Duchess was about fourteen. He also cites a small painting on copper which appears to be directly related, depicting the sitter in the same costume, bust-length (15.5 x 12.5 cm., previously with Galerie Nicolas Lenté, Paris, as 'Attributed to Lavinia Fontana').