Portrait of the Donor Giovanni Tornabuoni 1490

Domenico Ghirlandaio created this fresco portrait of Giovanni Tornabuoni using a variety of mineral pigments suspended in water. The artist has created a fictive space with a painted archway; we see Tornabuoni kneeling in prayer before it. In executing this painting, the artist would have had to work quickly. Fresco involves applying pigment to wet plaster, and the colors set as the plaster dries. Ghirlandaio would have prepared a detailed under drawing and transferred it to the wall by incising the lines through a paper cartoon. You can see the regular vertical marks of the brushstrokes in the details of the columns. Ghirlandaio was part of a well-oiled and highly productive workshop. Here we see not just the depiction of wealth, but also an example of it. Fresco paintings like this one were typically commissioned by wealthy patrons like Tornabuoni, who were eager to demonstrate their status through art. These types of paintings were also instrumental in creating a culture of aesthetics. By understanding how these works were made, and the environment around their production, we can gain a better sense of their cultural value and the importance of labor and materials in defining artistic achievement.