Frederic Leighton. Bianca, 1881.


Oil on canvas, approximately 14 x 19.5 inches. Leighton House, London.


Aside from its title, this painting has little to do with The Taming of the Shrew or Bianca, the sister of Kate the shrew. Pictures of beautiful women were popular with the Victorians and this half-length portrait is in the same genre as the painting of Desdemona that Leighton contributed to the exhibition of of Shakespeare's heroines commissioned by the Graphic in 1888.

The woman who posed as Bianca was Dorothy Dene, an actress who was one of Leighton's favorite models and appeared in many of his later works.