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Portrait of an Elderly Lady
Agnolo Bronzino
Artwork Viewer
Agnolo Bronzino executed this stoic portrait around the time he became court painter to the powerful Medici family, rulers of his native Florence. The sitter’s identity remains unknown; she has sometimes been identified as Maria Salviati, mother of Cosimo I de’ Medici. Wearing a widow’s mourning dress, she holds a prayer book that attests to her piety. The legible text—Deus misereatur—is the opening of Psalm 67 (“God be merciful unto us, and bless us”). Bronzino’s elegant style earned him the admiration of the biographer Giorgio Vasari, who called him “a Florentine painter truly most rare and worthy of all praise.”
- Artist
- Agnolo Bronzino
- Title
- Portrait of an Elderly Lady
- Date
- ca. 1540
- Object Type
- Painting
- Medium
- Oil on wood panel
- Dimensions
- 50 x 39 3/8 in. (127 x 100 cm) Framed: 59 1/4 x 48 7/8 in. (150.495 x 124.143 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mr. Samuel H. Kress
- Accession Number
- 53670