The following version of this book was used to create the guide: O'Farrell, Maggie. The Marriage Portrait. Alfred A. Knopf, 2022.

Maggie O’Farrell’s third-person limited narrative, The Marriage Portrait, follows the life of Lucrezia, Duchess of Ferrara, as she comes of age and navigates her marriage to Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. In the narrative present, the protagonist is at Stellata, a remote fortress, with her husband and fears that he means to kill her. When Lucrezia was a child, she spent her time painting, studying and avoiding relentless teasing from her sisters. She lived in virtual isolation as her father, Cosimo, did not permit his children to wander the palazzo. When she saw men bringing a tigress into the castle, she told her sister about it in order to ensure that Cosimo would take them to see the large cat. In the Sala dei Leoni, Lucrezia snuck away from her family to find the tigress. She sat with the jungle cat and stroked its fur before her father and the guards forced her away from the cage. Five years later, after Maria’s death, Lucrezia overheard her father plotting to marry her to the Duke of Ferrara. She confided what she learned to Sofia, her nurse. The older woman helped Lucrezia evade the marriage by pretending that she had yet to menstruate. Their ruse staved off the wedding for a year, but the day Eleanora saw blood on Lucrezia’s dress, the marriage was expedited.

On her wedding day, Lucrezia feels overwhelmed by her new role as Duchess of Ferrara. She and Alfonso set out for their honeymoon immediately after the ceremony and the protagonist falls asleep in the carriage. When she awakes her husband is gone. Emilia, who worked at the castle in Tuscany, is one of the servants accompanying the procession and she helps Lucrezia find the delizia. At the outset of her marriage to Alfonso, Lucrezia struggles to navigate her role as his wife, sex, and the court in Ferrara. She wants to believe that her husband is kind and well-intentioned but events in the castle contest this narrative. After Lucrezia hears shouts coming from Alfonso’s quarters, Emilia tells her what happen. The Duke discovered that his sister Elisabetta was having an affair with his head guardsman and sentenced the man to death. His henchman, Leonello, strangled Contrari and Elisabetta was forced to watch her lover die. As Lucrezia copes with the difficulty of her new life, she sits for the marriage portrait that Alfonso commissioned.

Later, Alfonso calls in a physician to examine Lucrezia and aid in the couple’s conception of a child. The doctor orders the Duchess to be isolated and cooled. After the regime of confinement, sex, and penitence bears no changes in her fertility, Alfonso avers that he will hire a new doctor and plans a trip to the country. The following day, Lucrezia is disquieted when her husband reveals that they will be going to Stellata, a remote fortress with no servants. She is convinced that he means to kill her but is unsure to whom she should plea for help. At the stronghold, the Duchess is violently ill and fears that Alfonso poisoned her. Her maidservant, Emilia secretly makes her way to the fortress with Il Bastianino, the artist who painted the marriage portrait. During the paintings’ unveiling, Jacopo, the artist’s apprentice, secretly tells Lucrezia that he will help her escape. That evening, Lucrezia steals away from the castle through the kitchen door, convinced that Alfonso will pursue her. However, her husband and his henchman mistake Emilia for Lucrezia and smother the maid, convinced that they have killed the Duchess. Lucrezia’s death is reported as an accident. Later, Alfonso remarries and Lucrezia’s paintings become a craze in the court.