bronzino, agnolo, featured paintings in detail (1)

BRONZINO, Agnolo

Featured Paintings in Detail

(1)

(Portraits)

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora di Toledo1543Oil on wood, 59 x 46 cmNárodní Galerie, Prague

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora di Toledo (detail)1543Oil on wood, 59 x 46 cmNárodní Galerie, Prague

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora of Toledo with her son Giovanni de' Medici1544-45Oil on wood, 115 x 96 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora of Toledo with her son Giovanni de' Medici (detail)1544-45Oil on wood, 115 x 96 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, AgnoloBia, The Illegitimate Daughter of Cosimo I de' Medicic. 1542Oil on wood, 63 x 48 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, AgnoloBia, The Illegitimate Daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici (detail)c. 1542Oil on wood, 63 x 48 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, AgnoloCosimo I de' Medici in Armour1545Oil on wood, 74 x 58 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, AgnoloCosimo I de' Medici in Armour (detail)1545Oil on wood, 74 x 58 cmGalleria degli Uffizi, Florence

BRONZINO, Agnolo, Featured Paintings in Detail (1)

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BRONZINO, AgnoloCosimo I de' Medici in Armour

Cosimo I dei Medici (Florence 1519-1574) son of Maria Salviati and Giovanni dei Medici, called Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, was duke of Florence since 1537 and first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569 to his death. In this portrait he is about 25 years old, wearing his glittering armour, that points out his political ability and his power as a ruler-commander who

would have enlarged and fortified the Florentine State.

This painting, slightly wooden and less polished than all the other portraits with which Bronzino consigned the members of the Medici family to posterity, must now be regarded as the original of a long series of replicas. (There are less inspired replicas in the Galleria Palatina, the gallery of Kassel and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.)

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the painting is the skilful rendering of the armour, the flashing reflections of the metal and the hand resting languidly on the helmet. It is very beautiful in the firm drawing and the hard polish of the planes to an almost metaphysical effect.

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora di Toledo

Bronzino’s portrait of Eleonor of Toledo was painted soon after her marriage to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1539. One of the most precious works in the National Gallery in Prague, the portrait is notable not only for the charm of the woman portrayed and the well-known name of the artist, the court painter of the Medici family, but also for the story behind the

work.

Duchess Eleanor is portrayed wearing an expensive dress, the one she may have worn when she first arrived in Florence after her wedding. Her right hand is atypically adorned with two rings, which are only seen in this portrait and its copy.

The detail of the ring on the portrait’s edge depicts two cornucopia, a pair of clasped hands and a small bird (lapwing). The hands are a symbol of marital faithfulness and fertility and refer to the very happy marriage of Eleanor and Cosimo (as indicated by the historical records). The lapwing, pavoncella in Italian, was a personal impresa, or emblem, which the

Count de’ Medici chose for his wife after their wedding and which also matches the colour of her dress. This ring was found in the Medici family tomb in the 19th century and confirmed that Bronzino had a close relationship with the couple, which allowed him to depict such important personal details of Eleanor’s life. Today, the ring is on display in the

Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy.

BRONZINO, AgnoloEleonora of Toledo with her son Giovanni de' Medici

Daughter of viceroy of Naples Don Pedro di Toledo, Eleonora married Cosimo I de' Medici in 1539 and died in 1562. In this picture, datable around 1545, she is portrayed with one of their eight sons, the young John, born in 1543 and died, as his mother of malaria, in 1562. The intense blue of the background and the stateliness of the figure enhance the

preciousness of Eleonora's dress (for long time, erroneously believed her sepulture cloth), while her aristocratic beauty betrays a sense of melancholy.

It was painted towards 1545, at the happiest moment of Bronzino's activity as a portrait painter. The diligent and frankly enjoyed description of the details of the costume are transfigured, through the geometrical simplification and the calm fixity of the light, into a vision of an almost ecstatic detachment.

Archeological work in the tomb of Eleonora, the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici, has revealed fragments of the dress worn in this portrait.

BRONZINO, AgnoloBia, The Illegitimate Daughter of Cosimo I de' Medici

The painting portrays Bia, one of the two illegitimate daughters of Cosimo I, who died in 1542 when she was only five years old. It is one of the loveliest portraits executed by Bronzino for the Medici family. The girl, who wears a medallion with the profile of Cosimo around her neck, is portrayed with an expression of lucid fixity, in perfect accord with the

enchanted happiness of childhood, and her very slight smile creates a magical air of suspense. The background, abstract as in many other portraits by Bronzino, is of an almost enamelled lapis lazuli.

BRONZINO, Agnolo

Agnolo di Cosimo usually known as Bronzino was a Florentine Mannerist painter. His sobriquet, Bronzino, in all probability refers to his relatively dark skin.

He lived all his life in Florence, and from his late 30s was kept busy as the court painter of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was mainly a portraitist but also painted many religious subjects, and a few allegorical subjects, which include what is probably his best known work,

Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time, c. 1544–45, now in London. Many portraits of the Medicis exist in several versions with varying degrees of participation by Bronzino himself, as Cosimo was a

pioneer of the copied portrait sent as a diplomatic gift.

He trained with Pontormo, the leading Florentine painter of the first generation of Mannerism, and his style was greatly influenced by him, but his elegant and somewhat elongated figures always appear calm and somewhat reserved, lacking the agitation and emotion of those by his teacher.

They have often been found cold and artificial, and his reputation suffered from the general critical disfavour attached to Mannerism in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

bronzino, agnolo, featured paintings in detail (1)

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