Cosimo de' Medici the Elder (1389–1464)

Cosimo de' Medici the Elder from around 1526 by Pontormo is a posthumous portrait of Florence's great patron who died in 1464. Pontormo, one of the founders of Florentine Mannerism, painted this portrait as part of the Medici family's program of self-representation and historical commemoration. Pontormo's posthumous portrait of Cosimo de' Medici, painted for the Medici family over sixty years after the patriarch's death, reveals how Renaissance portraiture served the political needs of dynastic commemoration as much as individual likeness.

The posthumous portrait combines historical reference with Pontormo's characteristically intense, psychologically penetrating approach to portraiture.