2026
Egg tempera on wood
35,4 x 27,8 cm
The work is a conceptual reinterpretation of the female portrait from Piero della Francesca's famous "Urbino Diptych”, depicting Battista Sforza. The artist reinterprets the canonical image of the Early Renaissance through the prism of her signature red herring ruse, where the historical luxury of the Quattrocento engages in a dialogue with the immutable and timeless. Meticulously executed, almost jewel-like details define the model's status: a married woman of high rank. An intricate decoration, encrusted with large colored stones, interacts with the hairstyle, while strands of precious pearls symbolize female virtues. The dominant feature is the arched upper frame, in which Smirnoff almost literally reproduces the scenes from Piero della Francesca's fresco "Madonna del Parto”. The heavy, goldornamented curtain of the camp tent literally transforms the painting into a sacred altar, where the open fabric acts as a threshold between the earthly and the heavenly. This portrait is an homage to the womanhood, the idealised and elevated state that has its logicthe conventional appeal on the outside and a nod to the metaphysical, the introspective, current, deeply personal and eternal; the headdress is both the suggestion of the hierarchy and belonging to what stretches behind the curtains.