This catalogue lists one hundred and thirty female portraits painted on panel by fifteenth-century Netherlandish and Italian painters. The images come from museums and private collections, records of auctions houses, and digital archives. When access to the image was possible, the painted reverse is shown next to the obverse. Similarly, paintings that are relevant to the discussions in the book are seen next to the catalogued portraits. These are marital pairs; and copies of the original, or even possible originals but with information that was unverifiable or uncertain. Lack of information determined the fate of others. For instance, a Giovanna Tornabuoni attributed to Domenico Ghirlandaio seems to be in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum. However, it is not listed in this catalogue because I could not verify the accuracy of my source and my attempts to contact the collection failed, perhaps because at the time or writing communication is still challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The first image in the catalogue is the earliest extant fifteenth-century female likeness on panel. The items that follow are listed by their regional provenance, starting with the profile format. The terminus ante quem of this collection is ca.1500, when portraiture began to reflect the sociocultural conditions encapsulated by the manual on courtly etiquette The Book of the Courtier (pub. 1528) by Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529), and by the attitudes that would bring about the Reformation movements. The artistic demarcation was not easy to apply and the late portraits in the catalogue could be seen, in fact, as conservative in mood as much as stylistically forward-looking. Therefore, there could have been more of them.

The paintings are catalogued by maker, date, medium and support, dimensions, acquisition credit, name of the collection, inventory number. When information was not available, the affected field is marked as n/a. Some credit lines are more substantial than others due to issues of authenticity or histories of complex handovers.

In the final stages of completing the book, I discovered four more paintings, which are at the end of the catalogue rather than in order of classification. Their addition is a testament to the never-ending task of compiling a catalogue such as this.