No one would deny that we have been obsessed with portraiture for as long as time. We only need to look at Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art’s (QAGOMA) exhibition of European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is peppered with portraits by art history’s greats – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Daumier, Renoir, Degas, among others – to see examples of portraiture stretching back centuries.
One of the earliest works in the exhibition is Davide Ghirlandaio’s (David Bigordi) portrait of the 18-year old Selvaggia Sassetti – daughter of the Medici bank director – painted in c.1487.
