(Florence 1532–1592)
Portrait of a lady with a lapdog,
oil on panel, 86 x 67 cm, framed

We are grateful to Marta Privitera for identifying the present painting as an autograph work by Girolamo Macchietti. A certificate is available (December 2013).

Girolamo Macchietti was one of the refined Florentine artists who contributed to the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio.

According to Privitera, Macchietti’s authorship is evident is the volume of the face, an oval shaped by the interplay of light and shadow, a shiny and polished material echoing Bronzino’s paintings. The faces of Macchietti’s female figures are always characterised by a perfect complexion, as for example the figure of Medea in the Medea and Jason oval, circa 1572, conserved at the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, and the heads of Madonna and saints from a slightly earlier date, such as the head of the Madonna and Child with Saint Anne at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. Light performs an important function in the present portrait: it highlights the lady’s face against the dark background of the scene, and it creates depth as it falls on the middle of the sitter’s bust, illuminating the gold button trims of the sumptuous overgarment, crossed diagonally by a dark, translucent cloth. Light also contributes to the creation of naturalistic effects, such as the depiction of the head’s shadow on the pristine white ruff.

Macchietti is one of the few Florentine painters who, in the 1570s, developed a profound interest in the study of light, following the examples of Bronzino in the vault of the Chapel of Eleonore of Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio and of Pontormo in the Capponi Chapel in the Church of Santa Felicita. Similarities with the present painting can be detected, among others, in the Portrait of a young woman conserved at the Seattle Art Museum and the Portrait of a young man holding a letter from a private collection, as well as the painter’s large altar pieces, such as Madonna della cintola in the Church of Sant’ Agata and the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence in Santa Maria Novella, executed in 1573. Also typical of Macchietti’s painterly style is his use of neat, precise outlines to define the head’s oval, the shape of the ear, the large hands with clearly articulated fingers, the magnificent garment with the details of its fabric embellished with small gold pendants. The same special care in the reproduction of the texture of the cloth as is also visible in the portrait of a young lady in Seattle. Macchietti’s style is also recognisable in the definition of the eyes with their slightly red corners and the shape of the lower eyelid, the nose, the rounded chin: all these are echoes that can be found, yet again, in the Seattle portrait.

The extremely soft look of the dog’s hair suggests a comparison with works from the 1560s, such as the plume of Saint Michael the Archangel or the hair style of Saint John the Baptist, both executed in about 1576 for the high altar of the church of San Michael in Pontorme. A final detail that also reveals Macchietti’s hand is the architectural element behind the lady, an elaborately articulated plinth. Its rigorous design is reminiscent of many architectural scenes painted by Macchietti, such as The Baths of Pozzuoli for the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, dating from around 1572. The Lady with a Lapdog can be dated to the 1570s, on the basis of both the aforementioned comparisons and also because of the lace collar which was an element which derived from Spanish fashion that established itself in Florence in the last decades of the 16th century, in the austere climate of the Counter-Reformation.

We are grateful to Marta Privitera for her help in cataloguing the present lot.