Portrait of Bia de' Medici

Portrait of Bia de' Medici
Artist Agnolo Bronzino
Year circa 1542
Medium Oil on wood
Dimensions 64 cm × 48 cm (25 in × 19 in)
Location Uffizi, Florence

The Portrait of Bia de' Medici is an oil-tempera on wood painting by Agnolo Bronzino, dating to around 1542 and now in the Uffizi in Florence.[1] For a long time it was displayed in the Tribuna at the heart of the museum, but since 2012 it has been moved to the 'sale rosse' of the Nuovi Uffizi.

Identification

Its subject's identification, according to the Walters Art Museum and scholarship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities is likely Giulia de' Medici.[2][3][4]

Some art historians once identified the child as a young Cosimo I de' Medici, but it is now generally accepted to be Giulia. The child in the portrait appears to be a little girl, rather than a boy, and her expression is anxious. Maria Salviati, who is dressed soberly as befitted a widow, is seen sheltering the vulnerable child against her side. Art historian Gabrielle Langdon argues that the girl's demeanor in the portrait is different than would have been expected for the child Cosimo, whose family anticipated his role as a strong leader from his earliest days. It would have been to Cosimo I's advantage to commission a portrait depicting his mother as an exemplary widow, affectionately bringing up the orphaned daughter of Cosimo I's predecessor. The child's full lips, round nose, and curly reddish hair also bear little resemblance to known portraits of Cosimo as a child, though they do to portraits of the young Alessandro. Other girls of about the right age who were at court during this period also do not resemble the child in the portrait. The portrait might be one of the first in Renaissance-era Europe of a girl of presumed African and European ancestry.[5] This painting is in the permanent collection of The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Maike Vogt-Lüerssen argues in an article in Medicea – Rivista interdisciplinare di studi medicei that the child in the portrait with Maria Salviati is actually Salviati's granddaughter Bia de' Medici. She believes that the child does not resemble the known portrait of an adult Giulia de' Medici and that the relationship between Maria Salviati and Giulia was not close enough to have warranted a portrait. Most group portraits were of family members with close blood ties.[6]

The portrait has also been identified with other women, such as Isabella or Maria.

Maria Salviati with Giulia de' Medici in a portrait by Pontormo, c. 1537; Oil on panel, Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum.

Maike Vogt-Lüerssen argues that the famous painting actually depicts Bia's younger, legitimate half sister, Maria de' Medici. Vogt-Lüerssen noted in an article in Medicea – Rivista interdisciplinare di studi medicei that the subject of the portrait was identified as Maria until the 1950s and the pearls depicted in the portrait were a common symbol of the Medicis, often worn by legitimate female members of the house. Vogt-Lüerssen believes that the child depicted in a famous portrait by Pontormo with Maria Salviati is actually Bia, her eldest granddaughter, because group portraits in that era depicted family members with close blood relationships and Salviati's two younger granddaughters, Maria and Isabella, were too young at Salviati's death to be the 5- or 6-year-old girl in the portrait.[7]

Description

Bronzino shows the child half-length and sitting on a chair, recalling the pose in his slightly earlier Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi - a rigid official pose offset by some hints of hand movement, as if the character was about to get up, along with an intense but emotionless gaze straight at the viewer. The face is lit and highlighted by the blue background, whilst the cold light and absence of any strong chiaroscuro effect accentuates the smoothness of the subject's complexion and idealises her features. Her complexion is a pale white because Bronzino painted the portrait using her death mask as a model.[8]

Bia has her hair parted in the middle of her forehead and a falling bob, with two carefully tied braids framing the face. She wears pearl earrings, a gold chain with a pendant or medallion with her father's profile on it, emphasizing her bond with her father.[9] She also wears a sumptuous dress, made of blue satin with puffy sleeves, produced in the silk factories Cosimo was setting up in Florence at the time. With her right hand she is fiddling with the end or tassel of a golden chain or belt around her waist.

It was not an official state portrait, but would have hung in the family's private rooms as a reminder to them of the dead child and an inspiration and guide on the path to salvation.[10] As art historian Gabrielle Langdon argues, Bronzino painted the child with a halo effect, in "light-emitting white satin and pearls" as a metaphor for both her name "Bianca," which means "white" and her childish innocence. "Like (Petrarch's) 'Laura,' the posthumous Bia is a riveting emanation from Heaven who bestows purifying grace on the beholder," Langdon wrote in the 2004 collection The Cultural World of Eleanora Di Toledo.[11]

Reception

A 1954 Saarland stamp of the Bia de' Medici portrait, commemorating the work of Agnolo Bronzino.

The painting has continued to inspire modern artists. American sculptor Joseph Cornell's 1948 sculpture Medici Princess incorporates Bronzino's portrait of the girl. The sculpture, one of a series depicting members of the Medici family, shows an enameled reproduction of Bronzino's portrait in a dark wooden box, behind a blurred, deep blue glass pane. On either side of the main portrait are smaller vignette reproductions of the same portrait, behind glass as well. Below the girl's image, in a pull-out drawer, are a feather and a floor plan of the palace in Florence that was once her home. The sculpture, which is owned by a private collector, was on display during a recent retrospective of Cornell's work originating with the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[12][13]

References

  1. ↑ Uffizi Gallery
  2. ↑ http://art.thewalters.org/detail/26104/portrait-of-maria-salviati-de-medici-with-giulia-de-medici/
  3. ↑ http://www.artnews.com/2012/10/25/image-of-africans-in-western-art/
  4. ↑ http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2013/januaryfebruary/feature/faces-the-renaissance
  5. ↑ Langdon (2006), p. 40
  6. ↑ http://www.kleio.org/de/buecher/true_faces_medici.html
  7. ↑ http://www.kleio.org/de/buecher/true_faces_medici.html
  8. ↑ Murphy (2008), p. 32.
  9. ↑ Murphy (2008), p. 17.
  10. ↑ Langdon (2006), p. 103.
  11. ↑ Eisenbichler (2004), p. 49.
  12. ↑ Artchive.com
  13. ↑ "Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination" (January 5, 2008), ARTiculations, Smithsonian.com

Bibliography

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