No.88 

Alessandro Allori
(Florence 1535 – 1607), workshop of Portrait of Bianca Cappello (1548 – 1587), oil on canvas, 121 x 86.5 cm, unframed, (Wo)

Provenance: Viennese private collection
Bianco Cappello numbers among the most ambiguous female figures in ancient Florence; she was famous for her beauty as well as for her lifestyle. Born in Venice, she married Pietro Bonaventura of Florence at the young age of fifteen. The Venetian government did not approve of the marriage and wanted to bring her back by force, but Duke Cosimo I took the couple under his personal protection. His eldest son and heir to the throne Francesco de Medici I, although married to Johanna of Austria, started an affair with the beautiful young woman. He gave her magnificent clothes and jewellery and presented her with a palace near the ducal residence, the Palazzo Pitti, which is still known as the Palazzo Bianca Cappello and was elaborately decorated by Francesco de Medici’s court artists. In 1572 Bianca’s husband was killed in the street under mysterious circumstances. After Johanna of Austria died in an accident in 1578, Bianca Cappello and Francesco de Medici married secretly. Their bliss was short-lived, though. In 1587 the couple died in an attack of fever after a dinner at their villa in Caiano, probably of poisoning. Painted likenesses of the duke’s famous mistress are very rare; one is at the Palazzo Pitti, and another two portraits by Alessandro Allori’s hand are preserved in the Uffizi in Florence.

estimate €20.000,- to €30.000,-

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