Eleonora di Toledo
Agnolo Bronzino·c. 1560
Historical Context
Bronzino's portrait of Eleonora di Toledo, painted around 1560, depicts the Spanish-born wife of Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, one of the most powerful women in sixteenth-century Italy. Eleonora was Bronzino's most important female patron, and he painted her numerous times in the elaborate brocade dresses that became her visual trademark. This portrait continues the series of images that defined her public persona as duchess of Florence.
Technical Analysis
Bronzino's oil-on-panel technique renders the duchess with characteristic Mannerist coolness and precision. The elaborate costume is painted with extraordinary detail, each pattern and texture of the brocade meticulously reproduced, while the face maintains the aristocratic composure that defines Bronzino's court portrait style.
Provenance
William Beckford [1760-1844], Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, and Bath, England; probably by inheritance to Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton [1767-1852], Hamilton Palace, Strathclyde, who married Beckford's daughter, Susan Euphenia [d. 1859]; by inheritance to his son, William Alexander Anthony Archibald Douglas [1811-1863], 11th Duke of Hamilton, Hamilton Palace, Strathclyde, Scotland; by inheritance to his son, William Alexander Louis Stephen Douglas-Hamilton [1845-1895], 12th Duke of Hamilton, Hamilton Palace, Strathclyde, Scotland; (Hamilton Palace sale, Christie, Manson & Wood, London, 1 July 1882, no. 756); (Colnaghi, London and New York); The Hon. Francis Barry; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 3 June 1893, no. 11); (Colnaghi, London and New York). Thomas Glen Arthur [1857-1907], Ayr, Strathclyde, Scotland; sold 1906 to (Colnaghi, London and New York) on joint account with (M. Knoedler & Co., London and New York); sold 1910 to Victor G. Fischer, Washington, D.C.; sold 1912 back to (Colnaghi, London and New York), possibly on joint account with (M. Knoedler & Co., London and New York); sold 1926 to (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome and Florence);[1] sold 1954 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] See 31 July 1987 letter from Martha Hepworth, in NGA curatorial files. The painting was lent by Contini to a1930 exhibition in London. [2] On 7 June 1954 the Kress Foundation made an offer to Contini Bonacossi for sixteen paintings, including the NGA painting. In a draft of one of the documents prepared for the Count's signature in connection with the offer this painting is described as one "which came from my personal collection in Florence." The Count accepted the offer on 30 June 1954; the final payment for the purchase was ultimately made in early 1957, after the Count's death in 1955. (See copies of correspondence in NGA curatorial files and The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/698).
