Portrait of Alessandro de’Medici in Armor
Italy (c. 1530s)
I love this portrait of the Duke, but have yet to find anything substantially informative about this particular painting. If anyone knows more, feel free to add it!
Jacopo Pontormo
Portrait of Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence
Italy (1534-5)
Oil on Panel, 35.3 × 25.8 cm.
shoshmazik submitted to medievalpoc:
These were taken at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, there were tons of these portraits that lined the halls near the ceilings. Hence, the super crappy photo. Not sure when they were painted cause I couldn’t find anyone to translate the Italian.
Thanks for the submissions! I have previous posts on two of the paintings above; the Saladin Portrait, and the Portrait of Lebna Dengel/Emperor Dawit II of Ethiopia
Portrait of Alessandro de'Medici as Mars
Italy (c. 1555)
Fresco, 280 x 100 mm.
Alessandro de'Medici was the Duke of Florence 1530-37. His mother was Simonetta da Collevecchio, a servant of African descent in the Medici household.
[anonymous]
Benozzo Gozzoli, Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem, 1459-1461, Magi Chapel, Palazzo Medici Ricardi, Florence, fresco
I believe I’ve posted this before, but I still love it. thanks for the submission!
Submitted by anonymous
Jacopo Pontormo
Portrait of a Young Man(Alessandro de'Medici)
Italy (c. 1526)
Oil on Wood.
Lucca, Pinacoteca Nazionale Di Palazzo Mansi.
Stefano della Bella
Costume Design for a Moorish Character, Half-Length
Italy (c. 1640s)
Drawing, Pink and Grey Washes, 170 c 129 mm.
This drawing was probably originally intended as a costume design for one of the various pageants, masquerades and ballets of the Medici Court, particularly those organised the Accademia degli Immobili, under the patronage of Cardinal Carlo de' Medici.
It is interesting to note that, in each of the productions of the Accademia, a part was written for the Cardinal's Moorish servant. Indeed, among a large group of full-length costume studies by Della Bella in the British Museum - from the same period and in the same technique as the drawing here exhibited - is a study of a costumed moor, possibly the same model.
Five similar bust-length studies of female moors wearing elaborate headdresses, also drawn with pale washes of colour, are in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
Other examples, in pen and ink, are in the Instituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome. There is another drawing, pendant to the present sheet, of a Moor wearing an elaborate headdress, bust-length and turned to the left, which is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
[source]
medievalpoc reblogged
Alessandro de’ Medici
1534-35 Oil on panel, 101 x 82 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
A lot of people have been asking for more information on sources for paintings I’ve been posting in this thread, so I thought I’d add some info on artists and subject, as such is available.
In this portrait, Duke Alessandro de’ Medici is shown making a drawing in metalpoint of a woman in profile. In the latter part of the fifteenth century artists such as Verrocchio and Leonardo began to draw idealized female heads, often in profile. Michelangelo continued this practice. Alessandro’s drawing seems to relate to this practice, possibly Pontormo was teaching the duke to draw.
The melancholy that saturates this portrait is characteristic of much of Pontormo’s paintings.
(source)
More about Alessandro Di’Medici via Wikipedia:
Alessandro de’ Medici, Duke of Florence. Alessandro de’ Medici (July 22, 1510 – January 6, 1537) called “il Moro” (“the Moor”), Duke of Penne and also Duke of Florence (from 1532), ruler of Florence from 1530 until 1537.
Despite the many portraits of this 16th century Italian Renaissance figure, his African heritage is rarely, if ever, mentioned.[Editor’s Note: For more on this omission as it has occurred in the art world, read this January 2005 update.]
Alessandro wielded great power as the first duke of Florence. He was the patron of some of the leading artists of the era and is one of the two Medici princes whose remains are buried in the famous tomb by Michaelangelo. The ethnic make up of this Medici Prince makes him the first black head of state in the modern western world.
Alessandro was born in 1510 to a black serving woman in the Medici household who, after her subsequent marriage to a muleteer, is simply referred to in existing documents as Simonetta da Collavechio. Historians today are convinced that Alessandro was fathered by the seventeen year old Cardinal Giulio de Medici who later became Pope Clement VII. Cardinal Giulio was the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
On being elected Pope in 1523, Cardinal Giulio was forced to relinquish the lordship of Florence but he appointed a regent for his thirteen year old son Alessandro who had just been created Duke of Penna, and a nephew, Ipollito. Even though both were bastards, they were the last of what has come to be referred to as the elder line of the family.
I HIGHLY recommend reading the article linked in the above quoted material, A View on Race and the Art World.