Alessandro ALLORI (Florence 1535-1607) - Lot 9

Alessandro ALLORI (Florence 1535-1607) Portrait of Giovanna of Austria (1547-1578), Grand Duchess Duchess of Tuscany Poplar panel with one crosspiece (missing). Minor scratches. 45.5 x 34.5 cm Daughter of Ferdinand I, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and Anne Jagellon, Giovanna (Jeanne) was married to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, François I de Médicis, with whom she had eight children. One of their daughters was Marie de Médicis, future Queen of France, wife of Henri IV and mother of Louis XIII. Several versions of this official portrait of the princess are known, including one in Florence's Palazzo Pitti (1570, Tesoro dei Granduchi), while another version went on sale in New York in 2016 (Christie's sale April 14, 2016, NY, lot 103). Biographical information on Alessandro became clearer in the 1570s when, after the deaths of Bronzino and Vasari in 1574, Allori became the most fashionable Florentine painter. He succeeded Vasari as official artist to Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici, and was subsequently appointed architect of the Opera del Duomo in 1592. Our portrait dates from the 1570s, and is in the typical late-Mannerist style of Florentine painting, whose marble-like rendering of faces tends to imitate the statuary developed by Donatello and Michelangelo, among others.