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RAFFAELLO Sanzio: Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena

🖼 Portrait of Cardinal Bibbiena, c. 1516
Oil on canvas
85 × 67 cm
Florence, Italy

Soft brushwork captures a cardinal in three-quarter view, his shrewd gaze penetrating from behind rich crimson robes and jeweled rings. Raphael's psychological insight and technical mastery established the portrait as a tool for displaying both power and intellectual authority in Renaissance Italy.

The story of art
The story of art
E. H. Gombrich
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