(Vezzano 1490–1561 Lucca ?)
Portrait of a lady, half-length, in a yellow dress with green sleeves and a book in an interior, a landscape beyond,
oil on panel, transferred to canvas, 84.5 x 67 cm, framed

Provenance:
Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), Paris;
Duke of Roxburghe, Floors Castle, Roxburghshire, Scotland;
Henry Doetsch (1839–94), 7 New Burlington Street, London;
his deceased sale, Christie’s, London, 22 June 1895, lot 111 (as Bachiacca), for 34 guineas [to Lesser?];
(possibly) with Adrian Lesser, London;
with Galería Rembrandt, Madrid, 1977;
Private collection, Spain;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 10 December 2015, lot 156 (as Ezechia da Vezzano, called Paolo Zacchia il Vecchio);
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
L. Nikolenko, Francesco Ubertini, called Il Bacchiacca, New York 1966, pp. 66–67, fig. 85 (as Bachiacca, on canvas)

The present painting is registered in the fototeca Zeri under no. 36586 as Ezechia da Vezzano (Zacchia il Vecchio ?).

Ezechia da Vezzano is also referred to as Zacchia ‘il Vecchio’ and Paolo Zacchia, as Italian eighteenth-century art historian Luigi Lanzi called him in his Storia Pittorica dell’Italia (see L. Lanzi, Storia Pittorica dell’Italia: dal Risorgimento delle Belle Arti fin presso al Fine dal XVIII Secolo, vol. I, Milan 1824, p. 123). At the beginning of his career, the artist travelled to Florence, where he may have studied under Ridolfo Ghirlandaio (see E. Borelli, Nel Segno di Fra Bartolomeo. Pittori del Cinquecento a Lucca, Lucca 1984, pp. 18-19). Ezechia da Vezzano is known to have been active from circ 1519, when he painted the Adoration of the Shepherds for the church of Sant’Agostino in Pietrasanta, until circa 1561, the date of his last known work, the Ascension executed for the church of San Salvatore in Lucca (see J. Pope-Hennessy, Zacchia il Vecchio and Lorenzo Zacchia, in: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 72, May 1938, p. 213).

The present work is a significant example of Zacchia’s activity as a portraitist. The composition shows a young woman in three-quarter pose wearing a yellow dress with puffed upper sleeves, a white chemise and green lower sleeves. A knotted, red sash is tied around her waist, and she wears a long gold chain with a cross. The woman looks straight out of the compostion, her right hand resting on a book of music, her left hand on her hip and both hands are adorned with rings. The sitter is before a grey wall with a window opening onto a landscape with mountains, castellated buildings by a river, trees, figures and two swans by a coastal landscape.

This work can be compared to Zacchia’s celebrated Portrait of a Musician in the Louvre, Paris (see fig. 1). The two paintings show a similar use of chiaroscuro, seen in the comparable handling of shadows on the sitters’ faces which are set against the simple, geometrical backgrounds. The present portrait can also be compared to another Portrait of a Lady by Zacchia, today in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille (see op. cit. Pope-Hennessy, 1938, p. 214).

In the present work, Ezechia da Vezzano demonstrates his assimilation of contemporary artistic innovations, while still embracing traditional devices. He shows awareness of the early Florentine Mannerists, primarily Pontormo and Bronzino, with a similar use of brilliant colours, and purity of form. Although it is not certain that the artists ever met, Zacchia seems to have here borrowed visual elements from Bronzino’s work. The dignified bearing of the portrait’s sitter, along with her left hand resting on her hip, are reminiscent of those of Bronzino’s Portrait of a Young Man (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) dating to around 1530. The imagery of the right hand on a book often recurs in Bronzino’s oeuvre, as, for example, in the Portrait of Ugolino Martelli (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) and the famous Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence). These close affinities with Bronzino’s works of the late 1530s and 1540s suggest that the present portrait dates from Zacchia’s mature production.

The device of the window opening onto a detailed landscape characterized Florentine portraiture for decades and Zacchia very likely encountered such a compositional device while in Florence, possibly borrowing it directly from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. The close analogies between the present portrait’s background and that of Ghirlandaio’s works, such as the Portrait of a Gentleman (The Art Institute of Chicago), provide strong evidence for such a hypothesis. In the present work’s landscape, the diffused blues of the mountains are reminiscent of Leonardo’s sfumato.

The identity of the present portrait’s sitter remains unknown, but her elegant attire suggests that she was certainly of elevated social status. However, these elements of privilege are tempered by a sober modesty in line with imagery from 16th century Lucca (see M. Tazartes, Immagini negli Oratori e nelle Confraternite Lucchesi del ‘500, in: Città Italiane del ‘500 tra Riforma e Controriforma, Lucca 1988, p. 189). The choice of a slightly restrained appearance may be an attempt to underline the modesty of the woman portrayed, while her cross pendant establishes her piety. The small music book where she rests her right hand draws attention to her education. An interest in conveying the woman’s moral and intellectual qualities might suggest that the portrait was commissioned on the occasion of her marriage, as was customary. The precious stones of her rings might also support such a possibility. Since the fifteenth-century, emeralds were believed to carry good luck for happiness and marital success, while rubies were the gems most often given to brides, as they were thought to promote prosperity and negate lust (see P. Castelli, Le virtù delle gemme, in: L’Oreficeria nella Firenze del Quattrocento, Florence 1977, p. 345–346).