Lucrezia, the beautiful wife of the Florentine politic Bartolomeo Panciatichi, has come to us in a stunning portrait with no background, where is seems Bronzino, the Renaissance artist who painted it, did want us to focus our glance on this aristocratic amazing woman.
And I don’t blame it… Over her slim and elegant neckline a pearl necklace rests, with a brooch holding from the middle. Then underneath there’s a long gold chain with a little inscription on it that says “Sin fin amour Duré” (love should last forever).
And in her left hand she wears a little ring in gold and ruby that easily might have been her engagement ring, a piece that is today our protagonist in our Historic Jewels Collection.
The luxurious dress in sateen and red velvet defines her cold and quite beauty. Bronzino made a very good job playing with lights and shadows along her figure.
Lucrezia holds with the right hand a little prayer book over her lap. It seems she was waiting for the artista to tell her it was finished to just keep naturally reading.
The humanist and politic Bartolomeo Panciatichi’s whife since 1528, Lucrezia Panciatichi was inmortalized together with her husband by the artista Angelo di Cosimo, il Bronzino (1503-1572), who always worked under Michelangelo’s shade. Back in that time the art in the city of Florence was controlled by two huge names: The Medici family and Michelangelo.
Bartolomeo Panciatichi was son of Bartolome “The Old” and belonged to a very influent family of businessmen from Pistoia. They owned a business in the French city Lyon, a place very popular in that time due to the strategic situation it had as a central point of France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
Bartolomeo did rather prefer to carry on with his career as an humanist and politic and left aside the familiar business whe he was very young. In Lyon he met Lucrezia and after a few years the whole family moved in to Florence. There he achieved very good positions as an important politic and became in one of the most influential men in his time.
And his spouse, a lady who in this portrait rests solemn, dmure, elegant, devoted and quite symbolises Renacentist women in the high society.
Giorgio Vasari referred to this painting with these words: “…portraits of his and hers are so natural that seems to be really alive, and only surprises the spirit”
Both Bronzino’s portraits are shown in the Uffizzi’s gallery in Florence.
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Imágenes: María Vintage Photography