Leonello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Obverse: Leonello was aware that different portraitists might record and arrange his features differently. Pisanello, his favored artist, turned his sitter’s curly mop of hair into a leonine mane – a play on Leonello’s name (‘Little Lion’) and a physiognomical reference to the rulership of the king of the beasts.
Reverse: Pisanello’s 1444 medal of Leonello commemorates his highly strategic second marriage to Maria of Aragon, an illegitimate daughter of the king of Naples. A song or poem made tangible and permanent, it represents Leonello as a lion learning the music of love from Cupid himself.
Reverse: Pisanello’s 1444 medal of Leonello commemorates his highly strategic second marriage to Maria of Aragon, an illegitimate daughter of the king of Naples. A song or poem made tangible and permanent, it represents Leonello as a lion learning the music of love from Cupid himself.
Artwork Details
- Title: Leonello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara
- Maker: Pisanello (Antonio Pisano) (Italian, Pisa or Verona by 1395–1455)
- Date: ca. 1441
- Culture: Italian
- Medium: Copper alloy, cast
- Dimensions: Diameter: 69 mm
- Classification: Medals and Plaquettes
- Credit Line: Collection of Dr. Stephen K. and Janie Woo Scher
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts