Having made politically astute loans to popes, the Venetian state, and French monarchs, Bindo Altoviti was one of the wealthiest and most powerful bankers of the sixteenth century. Born in Rome to a Florentine father, Altoviti divided his time between the two cities. His likeness was recorded in his youth by Raphael and, several years after this painting, in bronze by Benvenuto Cellini. This sumptuous portrait—executed at the height of Altoviti’s career—is painted on marble, a support used in Rome, where Salviati must have acquired the skill for it. However, the tactility of the heavy curtain, fur trims, silks, and velvets feels more Venetian than Roman or Florentine.
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Title:Bindo Altoviti (1491–1557)
Artist:Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi) (Italian, Florence 1510–1563 Rome)
Date:ca. 1545
Medium:Oil on marble
Dimensions:34 5/8 × 28 3/4 in. (88 × 73 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of the Assadour O. Tavitian Trust, 2022
Accession Number:2022.460
Jean de Sellon, château d'Allaman, Pays de Vaud, Switzerland (by 1795); his son, Jean Jacques de Sellon, Geneva; by descent to private collection, Switzerland (until 2008; sale, Sotheby's, London, December 3, 2008, no. 35, as by Girolamo da Carpi, to Assadour O. Tavitian); Assadour O. Tavitian, New York (2008–d. 2020); Assadour O. Tavitian Trust (2020–22)
Pfäffikon. Seedamm-Kulturzentrum. "Art vénitien en Suisse et au Liechtenstein," June 18–August 27, 1978, no. 65 (lent by a Swiss private collection).
Geneva. Musée d'Art et d'Histoire. "Art vénitien en Suisse et au Liechtenstein," September 13–November 5, 1978, no. 65 (lent by a Swiss private collection).
Boston. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. "Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti," October 8, 2003–January 12, 2004, no. 17 (lent by a private collection).
Florence. Museo Nazionale del Bargello. "Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti," March 1–June 15, 2004, no. 17 (lent by a private collection).
Cologny. Musée de la Fondation Martin Bodmer. "La Renaissance italienne: Peintres et poètes dans les collections genevoises," November 25, 2006–April 1, 2007, unnumbered cat. (lent by a Swiss private collection).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570," June 26–October 11, 2021, no. 90.
Catalogue raisonné des 215 tableaux les plus capitaux du cabinet de Mr. le comte de Sellon d'Allaman. [Geneva], 1795, pp. 9–10, no. 22, as a portrait of Baccio Bandinelli by Andrea del Sarto.
Mauro Natale. Art vénitien en Suisse et au Liechtenstein. Exh. cat., Seedamm-Kulturzentrum, Pfäffikon. Milan, 1978, p. 104, no. 65, ill., attributes it to Jan von Calcar due to the rendering of the fabric in the background and Venetian influence; identifies the sitter as Bindo Altoviti; compares it to Parmigianino's "Malatesta Baglioni" (Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna) and thinks the paintings must be contemporaneous, dating them to about 1530–35.
Carlo Volpe. "Dipinti veneti nelle collezioni svizzere: Una mostra a Zurigo e Ginevra." Paragone 30 (January 1979), p. 76, pl. 65, disagrees with Natale's (1978) attribution to von Calcar and attributes it instead to Girolamo da Carpi.
Stefania Mason Rinaldi. "Review of Pfäffikon and Geneva 1978." Prospettiva no. 19 (October 1979), pp. 65–66, fig. 1, disagrees with Natale's (1978) attribution to von Calcar and attributes it instead to Girolamo Bedoli, dating it to about 1550–60.
Mauro Natale. Le goût et les collections d'art italien à Genève du XVIIIe au XXe siècle. Geneva, 1980, p. 71 n. 21.
Alessandro Ballarin. Jacopo Bassano. Vol. 2, Jacopo Bassano: Tavole. Cittadella (Padua), 1996, part 1, vol. 1, pl. 249, as by Francesco Salviati; dates it about 1541–43.
Mario Di Giampaolo. Girolamo Bedoli, 1500–1569. Florence, 1997, p. 142, no. 48, ill., agrees with Mason Rinaldi's (1979) attribution to Girolamo Bedoli.
Philippe Costamagna inFrancesco Salviati (1510–1563) o la Bella Maniera. Ed. Catherine Monbeig Goguel. Exh. cat., Villa Medici, Rome. Milan, 1998, pp. 48, 52 n. 29, as by Girolamo da Carpi.
Alessandra Pattanaro. Girolamo da Carpi: Ritratti. Padua, 2000, pp. 160–61, no. 24a, fig. 60, as "Portrait of a Gentleman with a Fur Collar (Bindo Altoviti?)" by Francesco Salviati.
Philippe Costamagna inRaphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti. Ed. Alan Chong et al. Exh. cat., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston, 2003, pp. 341–42, 398–99, no. 17, ill. (color), agrees with Volpe's (1979) attribution to Girolamo da Carpi due to its "energetic and somewhat loose brushwork" and attention to the sitter's psychology; makes stylistic comparisons to "Portrait of Onofrio Bartolini Salimbeni" (Galleria Palatina, Florence), "Portrait of Girolamo de' Vincenti" (Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples), and "Portrait of a Man" (Seattle Art Museum); dates it 1549–53, during Girolamo da Carpi's sojourn in Rome at the court of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este.
Donatella Pegazzano inRaphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti. Ed. Alan Chong et al. Exh. cat., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston, 2003, pp. 65, 81–82.
Alan Chong inRaphael, Cellini & a Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti. Ed. Alan Chong et al. Exh. cat., Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Boston, 2003, p. 364.
Yasmine Helfer. "Review of Boston and Florence 2003–4." Apollo 159 (March 2004), pp. 50, 52 n. 1, notes that Costamagna's (2003) suggested date seems questionable since Bindo looks much younger than 58–61 years old.
Eike D. Schmidt. "Bindo Altoviti: Boston and Florence." Burlington Magazine 146 (May 2004), p. 353.
Grégoire Extermann inLa Renaissance italienne: Peintres et poètes dans les collections genevoises. Ed. Michel Jeanneret and Mauro Natale. Exh. cat., Musée de la Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny-Geneva. Milan, 2006, pp. 328–29, ill. (color), as by Girolamo da Carpi.
Old Master Paintings: Evening Sale. Sotheby's, London. December 3, 2008, pp. 86, 88, 90, no. 35, ill. pp. 87, 89, 91, and on back cover (color, overall and details), as by Girolamo da Carpi; calls the Sellon family 's collection "among the most important of all Swiss collections of the 18th and early 19th centuries".
Philippe Costamagna inFrom Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome. Ed. David Franklin. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada. Ottawa, 2009, pp. 236, 459 n. 2, under no. 62, fig. 62.1, as by Girolamo da Carpi; suggests that the marble support may have come from Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli; connects it to the Seattle portrait because of their "well-developed sense of theatricality".
Fabio Fernetti. "Verso un censimento dei dipinti cinquecenteschi su pietra o lavagna." Sebastiano del Piombo e la Cappella Borgherini nel contesto della pittura rinascimentale. Ed. Santiago Arroyo Esteban et al. Florence, 2010, p. 56.
David Ekserdjian in Richard Rand and Kathleen M. Morris. Eye to Eye: European Portraits 1450–1850. Exh. cat., Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. New Haven, 2011, p. 24, fig. 3 (color), notes that if it is by Girolamo da Carpi, it is his "absolute masterpiece, since he nowhere else attains these heights"; calls it the "earliest known use of marble as a support for painting".
Claudio Seccaroni in Andrea G. De Marchi. Daniele da Volterra e la prima pietra del "Paragone". Rome, 2014, pp. 52, 55, fig. 48 (color), as by Girolamo da Carpi; dates it 1549–52; notes that it is doubtful that Vasari saw the picture before he published his "Vite" in 1550, but that he would have seen it in 1553 when he frescoed the loggia of Bindo's Roman palazzo.
Carlo Falciani inVasari per Bindo Altoviti: Il Cristo portacroce / The Christ Carrying the Cross. Milan, 2019, pp. 21–25 n. 13, fig. 12 (color), attributes it to Francesco Salviati; argues that the monumentality of the figure and the use of drawing "anchors this portrait to Florentine and Roman roots" that has no parallel in the works of Girolamo da Carpi; compares it to 2017.401; attributes its liquid texture to the marble support, which does not absorb the colors and requires the painting to be reworked several times before it dries.
Carlo Falciani. "Il 'Cristo portacroce' di Giorgio Vasari per Bindo Altoviti e una proposta per Cecchino Salviati." Paragone 70 (January 2019), pp. 29–30, 33 n. 13, p. 35, fig. 36 (color).
Judith W. Mann inPaintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred, 1530–1800. Ed. Judith W. Mann. Exh. cat., Saint Louis Art Museum. St. Louis, 2020, pp. 170–71, no. 39, ill. (color), as by Girolamo da Carpi, with reference to the attribution to Salviati in Falciani 2019.
Keith Christiansen inThe Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570. Ed. Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2021, pp. 10, 272.
Carlo Falciani inThe Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570. Ed. Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2021, pp. 46, 190, 250, 284–87, no. 90, ill. pp. 2–3, 285, and fig. 13 (color, overall and details), reaffirms the attribution to Salviati on the basis of comparision with 2017.401; notes that the marble support is "a symbolic reference to imperial Rome but also to the everlasting nature of the stone"; explores the various geographical references this portrait embodies, calling them "a skillful pictorial language that only Salviati possesed thanks to his varied background"; dates it to about 1545, likely in Florence before 1548.
Tommaso Mozzati inThe Medici: Portraits and Poltiics, 1512–1570. Ed. Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2021, p. 289.
Alessandra Pattanaro. Girolamo da Carpi. Rome, 2021, pp. 251–52, no. RA21, fig. 178 (color), agrees with Falciani's (2021) attribution to Francesco Salviati; dates it about 1541–46.
James Barron. "Talking Across the Centuries to the Medici Family." New York Times (May 19, 2021), ill. (color) [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/arts/medici-portraits-metropolitan-museum-exhibit.html].
Roberta Smith. "For the Medici, the Last Great Picture Show." New York Times (June 24, 2021), ill. (color) [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/arts/design/medici-portraits-met-museum.html].
Robert B. Simon. "Review of New York 2021." Burlington Magazine 163 (September 2021), pp. 844–45.
Elaine Velie. "Met Acquires Rare Portrait of Medici Nemesis Bindo Altoviti." Hyperallergic (February 8, 2023), ill. (color) [https://hyperallergic.com/799105/met-acquires-rare-portrait-of-medici-nemesis-bindo-altoviti-francesco-salviati/].
Alexandre Lafore. "Un portrait de la Renaissance offert au Metropolitan Museum of Art." Tribune de l'art (February 9, 2023), figs. 1–2 (color, overall and installation view) [https://www.latribunedelart.com/un-portrait-de-bindo-altoviti-offert-au-metropolitan-museum-ot-art].
Tom Seymour. "Acquisitions." Art Newspaper no. 354 (March 2023), p. 26, ill. (color) [online ed., "Acquisitions Round Up: The Met Acquires 16th-Century Portrait of Pope's Banker," March 13, 2023, ill. (color); https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/03/13/acquisitions-round-up-the-met-acquires-16th-century-portrait-of-popes-banker].
Andrea Donati. "Painting on Stone in Rome in the Sixteenth Century." Burlington Magazine 165 (July 2023), p. 742 n. 39, erroneously as in a private collection.
Francesco Salviati (Francesco de' Rossi) (Italian, Florence 1510–1563 Rome)
ca. 1530–35
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