Ginevra de' Benci

Meet Ginevra de' Benci, a young woman from a wealthy Florentine family, painted by Leonardo da Vinci when he was still in his twenties. This is the only Leonardo painting in all of the Americas, which makes it quite a treasure. Ginevra gazes out with a cool, slightly distant expression, framed by a spiky juniper bush behind her. That bush is actually a clever visual pun, since "juniper" in Italian is "ginepro," a play on her name. Little touches like this show how Leonardo loved to layer meaning into his work.

Look closely at her skin and you can see Leonardo's famous soft, smoky technique starting to take shape, giving her face an almost lifelike glow. The painting was made around 1474, likely to mark her engagement or marriage. Interestingly, the panel was once taller, but the bottom section was cut off at some point, probably because of damage. We know this because the back of the painting features a wreath of laurel and palm with a Latin phrase that translates to "Beauty adorns Virtue," and her hands would have originally been visible below.

Painted in the style of the early Italian Renaissance, this portrait broke with tradition by showing Ginevra at a three-quarter angle rather than the usual flat profile. That small shift made her feel more present and real, a hint of the genius Leonardo would later become known for.