_Piero della Francesca_ (Umbrian: 1416-1492). _See 665._
Ascribed by Morelli to Paolo Uccello. "The treatment of
the hair recalls that of one of the portraits in Paolo's
battle-piece (583), while Piero used to represent curls in a
thin and thread-like shape. The ornament on the left sleeve of
the lady also reminds one of the decoration on the standard"
(Richter's _Italian Art in the National Gallery_, p. 17). "Of
purely Florentine origin, and with its hardness of outline and
modelling, and its severity of aspect, resembles a Pesellino
writ large" (Claude Phillips in the _Academy_, Sept. 28, 1889).
This and the other profile head once ascribed to Piero (585) "are
probably the earliest specimens we have in the National Gallery of pure
portraits, _i.e._ pictures devoted simply to record the likeness of an
individual, first introduced as donors into votive pictures, and next
as actors in scenes from sacred history and legend. Portraits have
at length made good their claim to a separate existence in pictorial
art" (Monkhouse: _The Italian Pre-Raphaelites_, p. 41). To Piero
della Francesca also we owe "most precious portraits (at Rimini and
in the Uffizi) of two Italian princes, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta
and Federigo of Urbino, masterpieces of fidelity to nature and sound
workmanship" (Symonds).