Maria Teresa Meloni is a Florentine portrait painter. Given her first set of oils at age seven, she began imitating what she saw in the Uffizi and the Academia, particularly images of the Madonna and Child. An exhibit in Milan at Palazzo Visconti in 2004 received such critical acclaim that Meloni is booked until 2013. Each painting takes roughly four months to complete and although Meloni does paint adults, she specializes in children. A soprano, Meloni has been known to belt out arias in order to loosen up her clients, who include: Matthew Mellon, Valesca Guerrand Hermes, the grand daughter of Princess Luciana Barberini and the late actor Heath Ledger. Educated in Genoa and Milan, Meloni has studios in New York and in her native city Florence.