In the earliest surviving double portrait in Italian painting, Fra Filippo Lippi depicts a woman and a man, in what appears to be a marriage portrait. From the Scolari family coat of arms held by the man, the two have been identified as Lorenzo di Ranieri Scolari and Angiola di Bernardo Sapiti, who married in the 1430s. With its strong characterisation, interest in space and texture, as well as an intriguing, unique compositional choice, Lippi creates a mode of portraiture where the woman dominates and where she assumes a commanding presence right at the heart of the panel. Lippi's portrait offers not only a window into marriage, but also illustrates fifteenth century Italy in fascinating detail: his female figure wears a houppelande, a French-inspired garment fashionable at the time, whilst choosing to extenuate her neck and abdomen, the former for beauty, the latter perhaps to signal fertility. From this, it has been suggested that this double portrait may have been creat...