Portrait of Maria Salviati de' Medici and Giulia de' Medici

Pontormo (called by the name of his birthplace) was esteemed by the ruling Medici family for his ability to capture the individuality of his sitters, while emphasizing their aristocratic demeanor. Maria Salviati was the widow of famous military leader Giovanni delle Bande Nere de’ Medici (d. 1526) and the mother of Cosimo I (1519–1574), grand duke of Tuscany. The little girl holding her hand here is surely Giulia, a Medici relative who was left in Maria’s care after the murder of the child’s father, Duke Alessandro de’ Medici (1511–1537).
As Alessandro was the child of a Medici cardinal and an enslaved African servant, this formal portrait of his daughter may be the first of a girl of African ancestry in European art. The child was painted over sometime during the 19th century—apparently to sell the painting as the portrait of a childless woman—but was rediscovered in 1937 when the painting was cleaned.
Maria still wears the sober clothing of mourning for her deceased husband, while Pontormo’s elegant style of painting conveys her aristocratic grace through the rendering of her impossibly long fingers. Furthermore, her fashionably pale skin, made matte by overcleaning in the past, was meant to indicate a privileged life led out of the sun, but it is also known that she was ill. Giulia has also been painted as pale, extremely so, perhaps to draw attention away from her African ancestry.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Medici Collections; Riccardo Romolo Riccardi, Palazzo Gualfonda, Florence, prior to 1612 [inventory of 1612, Florence, Archivio di Stato, Carte Riccardi, fil. 258, c.21r-23r, as "un quadro di br.a uno e mezzo della Sig.ra D. Maria Medici con una puttina per mano di Jacopa da Pontormo"] until after 1814 [Florence, Archivio di Stato, Carte Riccardi, fil. 278, as "no 147 un quadro rappresenta un ritratto di donna con una bambina"] [mode of acquisition unknown]; Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome, prior to 1881 [mode of acquisition unknown] [1881 catalogue: no. 79; 1897 catalogue: no. 381, as Sebastiano del Piombo]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.