The painting portrays Giovanna degli Albizzi, a Florentine noblewoman who was married to Lorenzo Tornabuoni. She died in childbirth in 1488, year on the cartolina (Italian for a slip of paper in the background). The painting was actually painted after her death, around 1489-90. She has been identified thanks to her other portraits in the Tornabuoni Chapel, where she has the same hair style.

It depicts the young woman from the side, wearing precious clothes including a gamurra vest. On the right, behind her, are a hanging coral necklace (perhaps a rosary), a partly closed prayers book and a Latin inscription, taken from an epigram by the 1st century AD poet Martial.

This superb panel is a fine example of fifteenth-century Florentine portraiture. Artists of the time followed classical dictates: body proportions were idealised while faces left devoid of expression were expected to convey character. In this half-length portrait, the sitter appears in strict profile, with her arms bent and her hands clasped together. In the background, a selection of personal belongings appears within a simple architectural frame. The cartellino to the right bears part of an epigram by Martial and the date of his death in Roman numerals. She is also portrayed full length in the Visitation fresco painted by Ghirlandaio for the Tornabuoni chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence).

 According to wikipedia