Commission for The Boston Globe. A book review illustration of Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, “The Marriage Portrait.”

“The Marriage Portrait,” takes as its inspiration the brief life and mysterious death of Lucrezia di Cosimo de’Medici, who at 15 was married to Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, but within the year was dead. Officially, she perished from “putrid fever,” but it was ever after rumored that her husband murdered her.

Art director: George Patisteas