Portrait of Baccio Bandinelli with Lion

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli was a self-proclaimed rival of Michelangelo. This print, made from Bandinelli’s design, is a masterpiece of self-promotion that also encapsulates the Renaissance artist’s inspiration from antiquity and rising social status. Bandinelli portrayed himself sitting like a king surrounded by both ancient sculpture and his own works. The lion that bites into a block of marble symbolizes Bandinelli’s formidable power over the stone and perhaps the triumph of his skills over all others (including Michelangelo). His fur-lined cloak is that of a gentleman, and the cross on his chest indicates his knighthood in the Order of Saint James, a Catholic chivalric brotherhood.