NML home > Walker Art Gallery > Collections > 19c > 'Leonora di Mantua'

Our venues

World Museum Liverpool
Walker Art Gallery
Merseyside Maritime Museum
International Slavery Museum
National Conservation Centre
Lady Lever Art Gallery
Sudley House
Museum of Liverpool

Skip page navigation

19 century collection

Introduction
'The Death of Nelson'
'Linlithgow Palace'
'The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel'
'The Black Boy'
'Millie Smith'
'Isabella'
'Self-Portrait'
Study of Emma and Catherine for 'Pretty Baa Lambs'
'Napoleon crossing the Alps'
'Waiting'
'The Tinted Venus'
'The Stonebreaker'
'John and Georgina Naylor'
A study of 'Arthur Madox Brown'
A study of 'Arthur Madox Brown, age nine months'
A study of 'Catherine Madox Brown'
A study of 'Lucy Madox Brown'
A study of 'Oliver Madox Brown'
'A Coat of Many Colours'
'The Hunted Slaves'
'Faithful unto death'
'The Murder'
'Elaine'
'Dante's Dream'
'Bust of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow'
'Leonora di Mantua'
'Portrait of Mrs Catherine Smith Gill'
'Elijah in the Wilderness'
'Athlete struggling with a python'
'And when did you last see your father?'
'One of the Family'
'A Street in Brittany'
'Friday'
'Dante and Beatrice'
'The Mower'
'Fantine'
'Samson'
'A summer night'
'The Promise'
'The funeral of Shelley'
'Woman ironing'
'Break-up of the ice on the Seine'
'Perseus and Andromeda'
'The punishment of lust'
'The sense of sight'
'Ophelia'
'The Fairy Tale'
'Old Man's Treasure'
'The Eve of St Agnes'
'Deal'
'Puck'

'Leonora di Mantua' 1873, Valentine Cameron Prinsep

Painitng of a woman posed in a chair, dressed extravagantly, with a peacock feather-fan in her hand

Oil on canvas, 167.7 x 124cm

Mantua is a city in the Lombardy region of Italy. Many Renaissance (and later) Mantuan duchesses and princesses were called Leonora (or Eleonora). The most famous was probably the daughter of Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua who married the Emperor Ferdinand II. This particular Leonora lived between 1598 and 1655.

It has been suggested that this painting may be a portrait rather than an historical reconstruction. However, there is a distinct similarity between it and the portrait of Eleonora of 1623 by Justus Sustermans in the Palazzo Pitti.

This work is currently not on display