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Lot Essay
Vasari described his friend and sometime rival, Francesco Salviati, as '...one of the most able, resolute, bold, and diligent craftsmen of our age...' (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. G. Du C. De Vere, London, 1912-5, VIII, p. 189). Salviati evidently had a quarrelsome and capricious nature, also attested to by Vasari, and this may explain his peripatetic career, spent mostly between his native Florence, Rome and Venice. Born in 1510, he initially trained as a goldsmith, before briefly studying with Andrea del Sarto. In 1531 he moved to Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, whose name he adopted.
Salviati specialised in large-scale decorative schemes, mainly in fresco, and his influences ranged from Michelangelo to Raphael although he was also aware of the younger generation of Mannerists, such as Perino del Vaga and Parmigianino. He returned to Florence in 1539, where he contributed to the decorations surrounding Cosimo de' Medici's marriage of that year. He was, however, unable to establish himself at the Medici court, probably due to the dominant position of Bronzino. Throughout the early 1540s he travelled extensively in northern Italy, particularly to Bologna and Venice, where he painted the ceilings of the Palazzo Grimani, and Mantua, where he studied the work of Giulio Romano. Returning to Florence he worked for Duke Cosimo in the Palazzo Vecchio, but again his impatient character meant that he was unable to settle at the Medici court. He returned to Rome, where his fame led to important ecclesiastical commissions and patronage from the Farnese family.
In around 1554 Salviati left Rome for Paris, perhaps in the entourage of Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine. Vasari describes his brief stay in France as particularly volatile. Salviati, through his plain speaking and quick temper, did not endear himself to the Royal Court, and other than the work he undertook for the Cardinal at the Château de Dampierre, he received few other major commissions there, and in 1556 he returned to Rome. Yet this Parisian sojourn was not a wholly unproductive period for him, and in the absence of large-scale commissions he did produce a number of intimate portraits, including presumably the present example.
Salviati was a subtle and gifted portraitist, and he first showed an interest in the genre in the early 1540s, no doubt in response to Bronzino and Parmigianino. He may also have been inspired by the Venetian portraits that he would have encountered on his travels. Among his sitters were notable Tuscans, including Aretino and Annibale Caro, as well as members of the Medici family. The present sitter is unidentified; however, he would appear to be a young French nobleman, from his fashionable dress, and most importantly, from the order that hangs prominently from his neck. This was the Order of Saint Michael, the oldest French Royal Order, created in 1469 by Louis XI, in part as a rival to the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece. Membership of the Order was originally limited to thirty-six, although this was increased to fifty in 1565. The badge depicts Saint Michael, standing on a rock, representing Mont-Saint Michel, in combat with the serpent, within a gold oval mounted with cockle shells, the traditional emblem of pilgrims. It is suspended from the sitter's neck by means of a black riband, as set out in the statutes of the Order.
The simple pose and the green background suggest an awareness of the works of Corneille de Lyon, whose portraits Salviati could have seen during his stay in Paris. The nervous eyes, carefully drawn lips, whose under-drawing can be seen through the transparent glazes, the wispy moustache, and his close-cropped, somewhat tousled hair create a sense of a real individual, rather than a simple idealised image of a young nobleman.
Whilst the attribution of this picture has traditionally been given to Salviati (since at least 1955, when it appeared on the art market), the lack of any systematic study of Florentine portraiture of the second half of the sixteenth century means that caution is necessary in making attributions in this field, and the present attribution is offered in this light. We are grateful to Dr. Elizabeth Pilliod for noting that the present picture is 'very close to or by Salviati'. She also observes that it is likely to be from Salviati's French period, as suggested above, noting the French pendant of the Order of Saint Michael, as well as his ruff and doublet, which she dates from the mid-century or later and shows the influence of Clouet's sitters. This opinion is confirmed by Dr. Jane Bridgeman, to whom we are also grateful, who, on the evidence of the sitter's clothes and ruff, suggests that this panel dates to circa 1550-5 and that the sitter is wearing clothes that are French or North Italian, but not Florentine. Furthermore, she confirms that the sitter is wearing the pendant of the Order of Saint Michael, the design of which changed after the death of King Henry II of France (1559). Dr. Alessandro Nova regards this as a high quality work by a Florentine artist between 1560-80. We are also grateful to Dr. Philippe Costamagna for drawing our attention to his attribution of this panel to the Florentine painter Tommaso Mazuoli, called Maso da San Friano (see P. Costamagna, op. cit.), an opinion that is gaining acceptance amongst other scholars in the field.
According to Vasari, who worked with him on a number of Medici commissions, Maso da San Friano (Florence 1531-1571) was taught by Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who was himself a pupil of Andrea del Sarto. Today Maso is recognised as one of the chief exponents of a Tuscan revival of the proto-Mannerist styles of del Sarto and Pontormo around the 1560s and 70s. His portraits exhibit a pronounced tendency towards a more naturalistic style that may have been, in part, a reaction to the artificiality and refined elegance of artists such as Bronzino, who was court painter to Cosimo I from 1539-60. The present work is comparable with a portrait given to Maso da San Friano and recently identified as Ottavio Farnese, 2nd Duke of Parma and Piacenza in the Cobbe Collection, Newbridge and Hatchlands (see the exhibition catalogue Clerics and Connoisseurs. An Irish Art Collection through Three Centuries, ed. A. Laing, Kenwood House, London, 19 October 2001-27 January 2002, no. 54, pp. 235-7).
Salviati specialised in large-scale decorative schemes, mainly in fresco, and his influences ranged from Michelangelo to Raphael although he was also aware of the younger generation of Mannerists, such as Perino del Vaga and Parmigianino. He returned to Florence in 1539, where he contributed to the decorations surrounding Cosimo de' Medici's marriage of that year. He was, however, unable to establish himself at the Medici court, probably due to the dominant position of Bronzino. Throughout the early 1540s he travelled extensively in northern Italy, particularly to Bologna and Venice, where he painted the ceilings of the Palazzo Grimani, and Mantua, where he studied the work of Giulio Romano. Returning to Florence he worked for Duke Cosimo in the Palazzo Vecchio, but again his impatient character meant that he was unable to settle at the Medici court. He returned to Rome, where his fame led to important ecclesiastical commissions and patronage from the Farnese family.
In around 1554 Salviati left Rome for Paris, perhaps in the entourage of Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine. Vasari describes his brief stay in France as particularly volatile. Salviati, through his plain speaking and quick temper, did not endear himself to the Royal Court, and other than the work he undertook for the Cardinal at the Château de Dampierre, he received few other major commissions there, and in 1556 he returned to Rome. Yet this Parisian sojourn was not a wholly unproductive period for him, and in the absence of large-scale commissions he did produce a number of intimate portraits, including presumably the present example.
Salviati was a subtle and gifted portraitist, and he first showed an interest in the genre in the early 1540s, no doubt in response to Bronzino and Parmigianino. He may also have been inspired by the Venetian portraits that he would have encountered on his travels. Among his sitters were notable Tuscans, including Aretino and Annibale Caro, as well as members of the Medici family. The present sitter is unidentified; however, he would appear to be a young French nobleman, from his fashionable dress, and most importantly, from the order that hangs prominently from his neck. This was the Order of Saint Michael, the oldest French Royal Order, created in 1469 by Louis XI, in part as a rival to the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece. Membership of the Order was originally limited to thirty-six, although this was increased to fifty in 1565. The badge depicts Saint Michael, standing on a rock, representing Mont-Saint Michel, in combat with the serpent, within a gold oval mounted with cockle shells, the traditional emblem of pilgrims. It is suspended from the sitter's neck by means of a black riband, as set out in the statutes of the Order.
The simple pose and the green background suggest an awareness of the works of Corneille de Lyon, whose portraits Salviati could have seen during his stay in Paris. The nervous eyes, carefully drawn lips, whose under-drawing can be seen through the transparent glazes, the wispy moustache, and his close-cropped, somewhat tousled hair create a sense of a real individual, rather than a simple idealised image of a young nobleman.
Whilst the attribution of this picture has traditionally been given to Salviati (since at least 1955, when it appeared on the art market), the lack of any systematic study of Florentine portraiture of the second half of the sixteenth century means that caution is necessary in making attributions in this field, and the present attribution is offered in this light. We are grateful to Dr. Elizabeth Pilliod for noting that the present picture is 'very close to or by Salviati'. She also observes that it is likely to be from Salviati's French period, as suggested above, noting the French pendant of the Order of Saint Michael, as well as his ruff and doublet, which she dates from the mid-century or later and shows the influence of Clouet's sitters. This opinion is confirmed by Dr. Jane Bridgeman, to whom we are also grateful, who, on the evidence of the sitter's clothes and ruff, suggests that this panel dates to circa 1550-5 and that the sitter is wearing clothes that are French or North Italian, but not Florentine. Furthermore, she confirms that the sitter is wearing the pendant of the Order of Saint Michael, the design of which changed after the death of King Henry II of France (1559). Dr. Alessandro Nova regards this as a high quality work by a Florentine artist between 1560-80. We are also grateful to Dr. Philippe Costamagna for drawing our attention to his attribution of this panel to the Florentine painter Tommaso Mazuoli, called Maso da San Friano (see P. Costamagna, op. cit.), an opinion that is gaining acceptance amongst other scholars in the field.
According to Vasari, who worked with him on a number of Medici commissions, Maso da San Friano (Florence 1531-1571) was taught by Pier Francesco di Jacopo di Sandro, who was himself a pupil of Andrea del Sarto. Today Maso is recognised as one of the chief exponents of a Tuscan revival of the proto-Mannerist styles of del Sarto and Pontormo around the 1560s and 70s. His portraits exhibit a pronounced tendency towards a more naturalistic style that may have been, in part, a reaction to the artificiality and refined elegance of artists such as Bronzino, who was court painter to Cosimo I from 1539-60. The present work is comparable with a portrait given to Maso da San Friano and recently identified as Ottavio Farnese, 2nd Duke of Parma and Piacenza in the Cobbe Collection, Newbridge and Hatchlands (see the exhibition catalogue Clerics and Connoisseurs. An Irish Art Collection through Three Centuries, ed. A. Laing, Kenwood House, London, 19 October 2001-27 January 2002, no. 54, pp. 235-7).