Portrait of a Young Fiancee by Leonardo da Vinci

Portrait of a Young Fiancée, also La Bella Principessa (The Beautiful Princess), attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, ink and coloured chalk drawing on vellum paper, is a profile portrait of a young woman with elegant clothing and elaborate, braided hairstyle in a ponytail. The delicate modelling of face and features and intricate detail of the subject’s hair and Renaissance era costume are an exemplary example of classical Renaissance drawing and the sense of individualism and humanistic values that emerged in that era. Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) was the greatest master of the High Italian Renaissance and quintessential "Renaissance Man" whose work as painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, anatomist and much more is without comparison. Born near Florence, Italy, and apprenticed to the painter Verrocchio, Leonardo invented many new ideas and extended the principles of perspective drawing, aerial perspective, the human figure and anatomy and much else to heights never seen since, during the period of rediscovery of the arts and philosophy of classical antiquity. Widely regarded as possibly the greatest artist who ever lived, Leonardo left very few completed paintings, due to either his restless experiments with painting technique that sometimes failed, or his infamous habit of procrastination.