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Title:Cosimo I de' Medici (1519–1574)
Artist:Workshop of Bronzino (Italian, Monticelli 1503–1572 Florence)
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:37 3/4 x 27 3/4 in. (95.9 x 70.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1908
Accession Number:08.262
Strozzi, Florence; Rev. John Sanford, Florence and London (until 1839; his sale, Christie's, London, March 9, 1839, no. 123, as by Bronzino, for £14.14); Charles Callahan Perkins, Boston (until d. 1886); his son, Charles Bruen Perkins, Boston (1886–1908; sold to The Met)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum," June 15–August 15, 1971, no catalogue.
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT.
Joseph Breck. "Sammlungen: Die Neuerwerbungen des Metropolitan Museum in New York." Der Cicerone 1 (1909), p. 292, attributes it to Bronzino.
B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "Principal Accessions." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (April 1909), p. 69, ill., attributes it to Bronzino.
Hanns Schulze. Die Werke Angelo Bronzinos. Strasbourg, 1911, p. XXIV, considers it a replica by Bronzino similar to the version in the Accademia in Florence.
Bryson Burroughs. Catalogue of Paintings. 3rd ed. New York, 1917, p. 32, as by Bronzino.
Arthur McComb. Agnolo Bronzino, His Life and Works. Cambridge, Mass., 1928, pp. 13, 72–73, pl. 17, calls this portrait probably the original, and dates it about 1542–45.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 69, ill.
Luisa Becherucci. Manieristi toscani. Bergamo, 1944, p. 42, mentions it among the replicas of the Uffizi portrait, which she feels is the original.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 13.
Andrea Emiliani. Il Bronzino. Busto Arsizio, 1960, unpaginated, opp. pl. 90, calls it a replica of the Uffizi portrait.
Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School. New York, 1971, p. 203, ill., call it probably derived from a Bronzino portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici painted in 1545 (now possibly no. 28 in the Uffizi); mention fringed curtain and ornamental border probably taken from the "Portrait of a Man" by Salviati (MMA 55.14).
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 36, 515, 605.
Edi Baccheschi. L'opera completa del Bronzino. Milan, 1973, p. 94, no. 54g, considers it a workshop version of the Uffizi portrait.
Robert Barry Simon. "Bronzino's Portraits of Cosimo I de' Medici." PhD diss., Columbia University, 1982, pp. 91–93, 260–63, no. A21, notes that it is the work of a copyist whose model must have been a half-length rather than a three-quarter-length portrait, dates it 1543–44, and thinks that the hanging in the background derives from another composition (cites our "Portrait of a Young Man" by Salviati [45.128.11]) and alludes to hangings that covered portraits in the Cinquecento.
Robert B. Simon. "Bronzino's Portrait of Cosimo I in Armour." Burlington Magazine 125 (September 1983), pp. 528, 531–32, 539, no. 21, fig. 10, discusses the numerous versions of this portrait (over 25 examples are listed in his Appendix II) and considers our version to be by "an artist other than Bronzino".
Angela Tamvaki inEl Greco in Italy and Italian Art. Exh. cat., National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. Athens, 1995, pp. 266–68, 490, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 37, ill.
Antonio Geremicca inBronzino: Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici. Ed. Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali. Exh. cat., Palazzo Strozzi. Florence, 2010, p. 114.
Alejandra González Leyva inManierismo: El Arte después de la Perfección. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional de San Carlos. Mexico City, 2014, p. 56, fig. 2 (color).
Robert Simon (1983) lists twenty-eight versions of this composition, attributing the various examples to Bronzino, his workshop, and anonymous copyists. Since Simon's publication, art historians have generally concluded that the Florence and Sydney versions are autograph.
Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari) (Italian, Verona 1528–1588 Venice)
1570s
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