MASP

The presumed identification of the sitter as Piero de Medici is validated by the more recent inscription in pencil, on the reverse side of Portrait of a Florentine Noble (Piero de Medici?). The possibility of the subject’s belonging to the Medici family is further endorsed by his resemblance to Cosimo I de Medici and one of his sons, Ferdinand, and principally with the subject of another Medici portrait attributed to Bronzino and conserved at Galerie Liechtenstein, in Vienna. The painting in the Masp Collection, originally part of the Barberini Collection, was sold in a 1935 auction at Casa Antonina, Rome. In 1912, in his guide to Rome (p. 688), Gsell Fels mentioned the canvas, which he attributed to Bronzino, as being exhibited in Salon III in Palazzo Barberini. In an undated catalogue titled Catalogue Galerie Barberini, the painting is described as “Portrait de Gentilhomme vêtu en noir avec collier de dentelles” and also attributed to Bronzino. In 1928, when he wrote a monograph on the artist, McComb included the painting in the catalogue with the annotation “Possibly by Salviati” (p. 118). Aer its acquisition as a presumed Bronzino, the work was attributed to Alessandro Allori or his studio in a letter from Robert Simon to Pietro M. Bardi in 1978: “I believe the picture to be by Alessandro Allori... or by him with workshop participation. As evidence, may I point to a three-quarter length portrait of the same man in the same pose, attributed to Allori, which was sold from the collection of Morris Kaplan (Chicago) at Sotheby’s, London, June 12, 1968, lot n. 1”. e por- trait in question is the same work hypothetically attributed to Allori, that illustrates F. Cappi Bentivegna’s Abbigliamento e costume nella pittura italiana. (Rinascimento, Rome, 1962, p. 483.) In this book, the author refers to the painting as having once been in the collection of the Duchess de La Rochefoucauld, of Paris. Due to its smaller size and simplified composition, the portrait in the Masp Collection seems to be a workshop replica of Allori’s portrait, which first belonged to the Duchess de La Rochefoucauld and later to Morris Kaplan, of Chicago, before being sold at Sotheby’s of London in 1968. Although in the past various experts viewed the work as a 19th-century copy, in a more recent analysis Andrea Rothe, Philippe Costamagna, and Paul Joannides (all verbal communications) have resolutely attributed it to Alessandro Allori’s studio, at least.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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