Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this Baroque Portrait Oil Painting to the 1920s.
This is a very fine copy of the original in the Pitti Palace, Florence. It is in excellent condition and unlined.
Am inscription verso (Image 4) declares that it was painted by Socrate Butazzi in 1925, and that the finished painting was inspected, officially stamped and signed off by a Palace official as being an accurate and good copy.
It will be noted that in 1925 the painting was called 'Portrait of an Unknown Young Boy'. Later research proved it to be a portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici painted c.1667, and it has been listed as such for decades.
The Medici were a powerful and influential Florentine family who became rulers of Tuscany from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Three Popes came from the family along with a line of important rulers, most notably Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492), patron of some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo. Like his father, Ferdinando was a patron of Galileo Galilei, one of the most important astronomers and polymaths of the Renaissance. Galileo named his newly-discovered moons of Jupiter (the ‘Medicea Sidera’) in honour of the Medici family. Ferdinando married Vittoria Della Rovere, with whom he had two children, including Cosimo III, his eventual successor.
JUSTUS SUSTERMANS a Flemish portrait painter working in Italy, was born Sep. 28, 1597, died 1681. Sustermans was court painter for the Medici family of Florence for many decades.
SOCRATE BUTAZZI (19th/20th c) )was a well known and highly talented copyist of Renaissance portraits.
SIZE: 36 x 30.25 inches including the frame.
Roy Precious - Antiques & Fine Art has dated this Baroque Portrait Oil Painting to the 1920s.
Roy and nadine precious: specialists in portraiture from the 16th to the 20th century. Established in 1972.
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Portrait of Ferdinando de' Medici as a child, After Justus Sustermans.
