Piero della Francesca - Diptych of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza

• Title: Diptych of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza
• Artist: Piero della Francesca (c.1415-1492)
• Date: c. 1473-75
• Medium: Oil on wood panel
• Dimensions: 47 x 33 cm

The diptych features the Duke of Urbino Federico (1422–1482) and his wife Battista (1446–1472) and is one of the most celebrated portraits of the Italian Renaissance.

The couple are facing each other with the continuity between the two panels brought by the background with similar light on both panels and the rolling landscape resembling that of the Marches with its hills and rivers. The chromatic contrast is striking between the bronze skin tones used for Federico and the pale tones of Battista. The whiteness of Battista’s skin may reflect it was fashionable for a woman to be pale then but could also allude to her untimely death in 1472.