BRONZINO, Agnolo, Paintings in Detail (2)

2. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Featured Paintings in Detail
(2)
(Portraits)

3. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri
1555-60
Oil on canvas, 83 x 60 cm
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

4. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri (detail)
1555-60
Oil on canvas, 83 x 60 cm
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

5. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri (detail)
1555-60
Oil on canvas, 83 x 60 cm
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

6. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri (detail)
1555-60
Oil on canvas, 83 x 60 cm
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

7. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri (detail)
1555-60
Oil on canvas, 83 x 60 cm
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

9. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 102 x 85 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

10. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 102 x 85 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

11. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 102 x 85 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

12. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 102 x 85 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

13. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 102 x 85 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

15. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 104 x 84 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

16. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 104 x 84 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

17. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 104 x 84 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

18. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi
(detail)
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 104 x 84 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

20. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Maria de' Medici
1551
Tempera on wood, 53 x 38 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

21. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Maria de' Medici (detail)
1551
Tempera on wood, 53 x 38 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

22. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Maria de' Medici (detail)
1551
Tempera on wood, 53 x 38 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

23. BRONZINO, Agnolo
, Featured Paintings in Detail (2)
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24. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Maria de' Medici
First-born of Cosimo I de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, Maria was born in 1540 and died in 1557 at the age of seventeen. The picture is datable around 1551 as is mentioned in
letter written in that year by Bronzino to Cosimo I. Once again the painter realized a portrait psychologically closed emphasizing just nobility, beauty and dignity of the person.

25. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Laura Battiferri
The sitter in this portrait is 16th-century Italian poet Laura Battiferri. Although Bronzino was primarily a painter, he also fancied himself a poet and often painted portraits of his literary friends and colleagues.
Laura Battiferri lived in Florence and married the Florentine sculptor Bartolommeo Ammanati at the age of 27.
This portrait is considered by some to be the most fascinating female portrait of this time period. Battiferri's slender fingers mark a page in an open book of Petrarch's sonnets to Laura, with whom the sitter
identifies. According to Petrarch, Laura is an "unapproachable, unattainable beauty... as chaste as the adored mistress of a troubadour, as modest and devout as a 'Stilnovismo Beatrice'". "Laura's personality
is even more elusive than her external appearance. She remains the incarnation of chaste and noble beauty."
This portrait is renowned for its break from convention, not only conventions Bronzino helped to establish, but other portraiture and gender norms of the time.
Profile:
Battiferri is shown from the side, offering a clear look at her profile and long, almost hooked nose. Bronzino unnaturally draws out her forehead slightly to call attention to the size and shape of her nose.
Women, or men for that matter, were rarely, if ever, painted from the side during this time. Her head also appears slightly smaller than normal proportion would allow and her neck has been elongated, which is
a trademark of the Mannerist style. Battiferri's head and position is also reminiscent of a coin profile.
Realistic presentation:
Bronzino does, like in most of his portraits, take great care to mold Battiferri's face in three-dimensional-appearing contours. This was his trademark: ultra realistic style. Laura has a very focused look on her
face and her blank expression is also exemplary of many of Bronzino's portraits.
Pose:
Laura Battiferri, a supporter of the Jesuitical Counter-Reformation, was reputed to have been a devout Catholic. Her great popularity at the Spanish court confirms this. The demure severity of her pose and
dress may reflect the increased rigidity of Catholic ethical norms since the Council of Trent (1545-1563).
Color:
Bronzino uses mundane colors, primarily white, gray, black and beige. In many of Bronzino's other portraits, he uses more dramatic tones like reds and blues.

26. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi
Lucrezia di Gismondo Pucci married in 1528 Bartolomeo Panciatichi, whose portrait was probably painted in pendant with this one about 1540. Bronzino describes her beautiful
dress, enhancing her aristocratic dignity and her elegance: the long gold necklace the lady wears includes small plates where are legible the words "Sans fin amour dure", alluding to
love and faithfulness.
As is typical of Bronzino's art, the lady is dressed sumptuously in warm pink satin and dark velvet. A book is held between her aristocratic hands and her severe, pure face is utterly
devoid of any naturalistic beauty. The artist makes this lady of a refined and cultured Florentine society an idealized symbol of chaste beauty (note the delicately, but also chastely
gathered hair) and high spirituality.

27. BRONZINO, Agnolo
Portrait of Bartolomeo Panciatichi
Official portraitist at the Medici court of Cosimo I, Bronzino painted also portraits of members of Florentine aristocracy or upper middle class, as Bartolomeo Panciatichi was. Born in
1507 and died in 1582, he held important public offices and lived in France as ambassador. In this picture he is around thirty years old, austere and proud, sitting before his family palace,
whose coat of arm appears on the right. He also commissioned Bronzino to paint the portrait of his wife Lucrezia and the Sacra Famiglia con San Giovannino, both at Uffizi Gallery now.
Here the influence of Parmigianino may be obvious, in the elongated figure and the vigorous line which creates broken surfaces on the sleeves of Bartolomeo Panciatichi. The
imposing, idealized structure behind the portrait refers to fifteenth-century styles, while the lucid surfaces of colour define once again all the ideal and intellectual splendour of this man
of the court: a work, therefore, totally in keeping with the taste and mentality of the Florentine painter.

28. 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.