What is the title of Leonardo's portrait of a woman known as 'La Belle Ferronnière'?

The title of Leonardo’s portrait of a woman known as “La Belle Ferronnière” is La Belle Ferronnière.

The oil painting is held in the Louvre and is generally dated to about 1490–1496, during Leonardo’s Milanese period. It shows an unidentified woman turned slightly toward the viewer, wearing a jeweled band across her forehead. That accessory is called a ferronnière, which helped give the painting its modern title.

The sitter’s identity remains uncertain. Lucrezia Crivelli, a lady-in-waiting and reputed mistress of Ludovico Sforza, has often been proposed, while other interpretations have suggested Beatrice d’Este or an unknown court woman. The painting’s attribution has also been debated, although Leonardo’s authorship is widely accepted today.

A common mix-up is “Lady with an Ermine,” another Leonardo portrait. That painting was once also called La Belle Ferronnière in a collector’s catalogue, partly because its sitter wore a similar forehead ornament. The two works are distinct portraits.