Art Institute of Chicago
Portrait of a Noblewoman Dressed in Mourning
Jacopo da Empoli (Jacopo Chimenti; Italian, 1551–1640)LinkedCulture matchlcp-b0d28d0ff011
- Date
- c. 1600
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Culture
- Italy
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 11390
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
The subject of this imposing portrait is unknown today. Her black costume and traditional mourning veil indicate her status as an aristocratic widow, while the prominent crucifix refers to her piety, as does the small prayer book in her hand. The woman is nearly life-size and framed by a dramatic black curtain, conventions in portraiture of the nobility across Europe at the time. In the decades around 1600, the Medici dukes of Florence intermarried with the ruling houses of Europe, and their court artists and work-shops helped establish an international style that appealed to princely and aristocratic collectors.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Louise B. and Frank H. Woods Purchase Fund
- 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.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033618
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