The Vestal Virgin Tuccia with a Sieve by Mantegna

Ashley Hicks is an interior designer and artist. His latest book, Rooms with a History, is published by Rizzoli

‘I love this little picture for many reasons. I like to think that it and its companion, another model of feminine virtue, were made for the great collector Isabella d’Este’s rooms at her Gonzaga husband’s palace in Mantua. These sublime examples of Mantegna’s exquisite, perfectly crafted art were surely made as part of a room’s decoration, to face each other near a window, with shadows painted correctly for its daylight. They look like gilt-bronze reliefs on marble, but the figures are impossibly lifelike and deeply modelled for reliefs, allusions to the tale of Pygmalion whose sculpture came alive. This timeless triumph of always gives me something to dream of and aspire to’