Summer QoTD #8

Lapis Lazuli is a deep blue semi-precious stone, prized for its intense colour. By the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli, then found only in Afghanistan, began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, the finest and most expensive of all blue pigments. It was often reserved for the clothing of the central figures of their paintings.

A Baroque period artist, who had a penchant for this expensive pigment, used it liberally in all of his oil paintings. He wasn’t well known outside his hometown before a French critic who went by the name William Burger reassessed his works leading to the artist’s distinguished reputation.

One of his more famous works, often compared to da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, has even had a book written (with the same title as the artwork) which was also adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson.

Identify this artwork and the artist.

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