Portrait of Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, full-length, in a red embroidered dress and a white lace ruff; and
Portrait of Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, full-length, in black coat and white lace collar with the Order of Saint Stephen,
oil on canvas, 205 x 123 cm and 203 x 121.5 cm, framed, a pair (2)

Provenance:
Aristocratic collection, Florence;
thence by descent to the present owner

This pair of official portraits were painted in Florence around the middle of the seventeenth century, stylistically close to the work of the Flemish painter Justus Sustermans (1597–1681 Florence), who trained with Willem de Vos in Antwerp and subsequently with Frans Pourbus the Younger in Paris. In 1620 Sustermans moved to Florence at the behest of the Medici, and from that time on, he was active as the portraitist of the reigning family and for other members of the court. The artist was especially devoted to Vittoria della Rovere who commissioned numerous paintings from him to furnish her favourite residence, Villa del Poggio Imperiale.

Vittoria della Rovere (1622–1694) was the last descendent of the dynasty of the Dukes of Urbino. In 1634 she married her cousin Ferdinando II de’ Medici, becoming the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. She is considered to have been an exceptionally refined sovereign who was attentive to fashion and enjoyed ostentation but was also endowed with a deep knowledge of humanist culture. In 1654 she founded a literary academy for women in Siena and she was the patron of many poets, musicians and scholars.

In the present portrait the Grand Duchess is represented in a resplendent red dress, enriched by gold and silver filigree embroidery, which generates an elegant chromatic play with the dark reds of the velvet curtains behind, and the table cover beside her. The noblewoman’s outfit is completed with trimming and a ruff of white lace, bejeweled with strings of pearls. On the table beside her, is the ducal coronet presented to Cosimo I de’ Medici by Pope Pius V in 1569, which is characterised by triangular points and ornamented with pearls and rubies.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II de’ Medici (1610–1670) is depicted wearing a sumptuous black velvet suit embellished with white lace cuffs and collar. Around his neck rests a red eight-pointed cross of the Order of Saint Stephen which was founded at the behest of Cosimo I in 1562. Beside him is the grand-ducal sceptre and ducal coronet, characterised by angular points and ornamented with pearls and precious stones, that was too granted to the Medici by Pope Pius V in 1569.

The composition of this pair of portraits reflects the classic arrangement of many of Sustermans’s full-length official portrait paintings, such as which can also be observed in his paintings Ferdinand II in armour, which was immensely successful among collectors and was replicated and copied on multiple occasions or Armour and Margherita, the daughter of Cosimo II, both in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence (inv. nos. 1000 and 994).