Portrait of a Noblewoman Dressed in Mourning
Jacopo da Empoli·c. 1600
Historical Context
Jacopo da Empoli painted this portrait of a noblewoman in mourning around 1600, capturing the somber elegance of late Renaissance Florentine society. Empoli was a Florentine painter who maintained a conservative Counter-Reformation style when many of his contemporaries were embracing the early Baroque. His portraits of Florentine aristocrats document the reserved, dignified social culture of Grand Ducal Tuscany.
Technical Analysis
Empoli's oil on canvas demonstrates the restrained, precise technique of late Florentine Mannerism. The dark mourning costume is rendered with subtle variations of black and the careful attention to fabric texture that characterizes his best portrait work.
Provenance
Probably Giovanni Battista Matteo, Cavaliere di Candia (1810–1883), Villa Salviati, Florence [according to a label attached to the stretcher reading, “A lady of the Medici Family from Foots Cray Place brought there from Villa Salviati, Florence.”]. Nicholas Vansittart (d. 1851), first Baron Bexley, Foots Cray Place, near Sidcup, Kent; sold Christie’s, Foots Cray Place, May 2, 1876, no. 237, as Sustermans, Portrait of an Abbess – full length, to Eyles for ₤52 10s with no. 238 "Portrait of a Young Nobleman", the latter which bears the inscription . AL . M . B . F. / 15(9?)3 [buyer and price of painting according to an annotated sale catalogue in the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles]; probably still in family possession, passing to Nancy Oswald Smith of Shottesbrooke Park, Maidenhead, Berkshire [for the relation of Nancy Oswald Smith to the Vansittart family, see Lloyd 1993, p. 79 n. 2]; sold Christie’s, London, February 13, 1948, no. 62, as Sustermans, to Berendt for ₤26 5s [according to annotated sale catalogue in the Ryerson Library, Art Institute; the "Portrait of a Young Nobleman" was no. 35 in this sale]. Galerie Heim, Paris, by 1958 [see Paris 1958]; purchased from Heim by the Art Institute through the Frank H. and Louise B. Woods Fund, 1960.
