Browse the Paintings Collection

Agnolo Bronzino (1503 - 1572):
Giovanni de' Medici

A105; oil on panel; 66.2 x 52.8 cm.

Presented by William Thomas Horner Fox-Strangways , later 4th Earl of Ilchester, 1850; WA1850.32.

Lloyd 1977, pp. 39-43; McCorquodale 1981, pp. 131, 134.

Giovanni de'Medici (1543-1562), the second son of Cosimo I and Eleanora of Toledo, was intended for a career in the Church: he was created deacon in 1550, Cardinal in 1560 and Archbishop of Pisa in 1561. A105 was painted c. 1550-51, when Bronzino, as court artist to Cosimo I, was working on a group of Medici family portraits. Although not original to this painting, the Florentine frame of c. 1580 is typical of Mannerist taste for the elaborate and the witty.

Order a Reproduction of this image.

Information derived from the Ashmolean Museum's Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Paintings.