Agnolo Bronzino,
The Holy Family, c. 1527-1528
Oil on panel
39 9/10 × 31 in | 101.3 × 78.7 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Best known for his Mannerist portraits, Agnolo Bronzino (usually known as Il Bronzino) served as court painter to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici for most of his career, and influenced the course of European court painting. With a removed, unemotional style, Bronzino excelled at capturing real-world subjects, but was less successful as a religious painter. Instead of conveying a sitter’s character, his carefully composed images aimed to establish a subject’s social standing and restraint. The pupil and adopted son of the artist Pontormo, Bronzino’s body of work includes idealized images of the poets Dante and Petrarch, as well as members of the Florentine elite. Bronzino greatly admired the works of Raphael and Michelangelo. More on this work
Agnolo Bronzino
The Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist and Saint Elizabeth, c. 1540
Oil on wood
101.6 × 81.3 cm
National Gallery, London
Elderly Saint Elizabeth looks down over the Virgin Mary’s shoulder at her son Saint John the Baptist. The Christ Child removes a garland of flowers from his head, symbolising innocence or childish pleasure. He grasps the reed cross held by the infant Saint John, who wears his camel-skin cloak and carries a baptismal bowl.
The reed cross foreshadows the Crucifixion, and by grasping it Christ accepts his destiny to die for humanity. The wild strawberries offered by Saint John may refer to Christ’s fruitful and righteous life, and their colour may also be a reminder of the blood spilled during the events leading up to his death.
The picture was painted around 1540, perhaps for an acquaintance of Bronzino’s at the court of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici in Florence. It is close in style to the frescoes Bronzino painted in the Chapel of Eleonora of Toledo (the Duke’s wife) in the Palazzo Vecchio in around 1541–2. More on this work
Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo, c. 1543
Oil on wood
height 59 cm, width 46 cm
Schwarzenberg Palace
Eleanor of Toledo (1522—1562) was the daughter of the Viceroy of Naples Don Pedro de Toledo. This beautiful woman was represented by the Florentine painter Agnolo Bronzino several times. Here she is painted at about the age of twenty-four, in the dress which she wore in 1539, on the occasion of a ceremonial arrival in Florence, where she got married to Duke Cosimo I de´ Medici. The pearls on her luxurious dress of Spanish style simultaneously represent the emblem of Cosimo’s family – the Medici palle – balls. The Duchess is touching her bodice – which could be a hint on her pregnancy, for between 1540 and 1543 she gave birth to four children (later on, four more were born). She is wearing two rings – the diamond one was given to Eleanor by Cosimo at the wedding. The one worn on her small finger is decorated with a motif of joined hands symbolizing a firm marriage, and a plover in profile. With the end of her lifetime Eleanor suffered from tuberculosis, and her exhaustion was probably also caused by frequent deliveries. More on this work
Bronzino (1503–1572)
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time [Allegory of the Triumph of Venus], c. 1540–1545
Oil on panel
height: 146 cm (57.4 in); width: 116 cm (45.6 in)
National Gallery, London
This is one of Bronzino’s most complex and enigmatic paintings. It contains a tangle of moral messages, presented in a sexually explicit image. Venus, goddess of love, steals an arrow from her son Cupid’s quiver as she kisses him on the lips. Cupid fondles Venus‘ breast, his bare buttocks provocatively thrust out as he returns her kiss and attempts to steal her crown.
The masks at Venus’ feet suggest that she and Cupid exploit lust to mask deception. The howling figure on the left may be Jealousy; the boy scattering roses and stepping on a thorn could be Folly or Pleasure; the hybrid creature with the face of a girl, Fraud or Deceit. Winged Father Time battles with mask-like Oblivion to either reveal or conceal the scene.
The picture was probably sent to King Francis I of France as a gift from Cosimo I de' Medici, ruler of Florence, who employed Bronzino as a court painter. More on this work
Bronzino (1503–1572)
Venus, Cupid and Jealousy, between 1548 and 1550
Oil on poplar wood
height: 192 cm (75.5 in); width: 142 cm (55.9 in)
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
‘The human eye cannot see like this,’ stated Wölfflin, the authoritative art historian, of Bronzino’s art. And perhaps a healthy human mind cannot think so crookedly as Bronzino’s did, for this bizarre picture is able to jolt even today’s jaded viewer. A blatant dissonance lies between the brazenly indiscreet erotic content and the annoyingly restrained form. There is body, but no soul, no instinct, no passion, no torrid arousal. There is no flesh, for bodies are hard as marble and cold as ice, as every outline is mercilessly sharp – this is what Wölfflin meant. Nor is there blood in them, they are blindingly white, like gesso (indeed, that is what they are made of: the gesso ground vibrates from beneath the thin, transparent colours). The tyranny of intended artifice weighs the picture down with sadistic overtones.
The subject is no less contrived, in that the precise meaning of the picture, and that of its famous twin, the Allegory in the National Gallery in London, will perhaps never be unravelled. Whereas in the London image jealousy and fraud seem to triumph over love, here, in turn, desire seems happy, mutual, and the hideous monstrosity of Jealousy scurries away in the background. But in the laboured world of Mannerism, nothing is so simple. When looked under infrared light, it turns out that in the place of the children Eros and Anteros, representing requited love, there was originally a satyr baring its teeth with a demonic grin, similar to the mask beneath their feet. Axel Vécsey
Agnolo Bronzino,
Holy Family San Giovannino, c. 1550-1570
Oil on table
47 1/5 × 35 2/5 in | 120 × 90 cm
Private collection
For Sale for €29,000 in Nov 2025
Agnolo Bronzino
Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici, c. 1560
Oil on wood
height 84 cm, width 64 cm
National Gallery in Prague
Cosimo I de' Medici (12 June 1519 – 21 April 1574) was the second and last duke of Florence from 1537 until 1569, when he became the first grand duke of Tuscany, a title he held until his death. Cosimo I succeeded his cousin to the duchy. He built the Uffizi (office) to organize his administration, and conquered Siena to consolidate Florence's rule in Tuscany. He expanded the Pitti Palace and most of the Boboli Gardens were also laid out during his reign. More on Cosimo I de' Medici
Il Bronzino
Portrait of a Young Man
Oil on wood
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Il Bronzino (born November 17, 1503, Florence [Italy]—died November 23, 1572, Florence) was a Florentine painter whose polished and elegant portraits are outstanding examples of the Mannerist style. Classic embodiments of the courtly ideal under the Medici dukes of the mid-16th century, they influenced European court portraiture for the next century.
Bronzino studied separately under the Florentine painters Raffaellino del Garbo and Jacopo da Pontormo before beginning his career as an artist. His early work was greatly influenced by Pontormo. He adapted his master’s eccentric, expressive style (early Mannerism) to create a brilliant, precisely linear style of his own that was also partly influenced by Michelangelo and the late works of Raphael. Between 1523 and 1528, Bronzino and Pontormo collaborated on interior decorations for two Florentine churches. In 1530 Bronzino moved to Pesaro, where he briefly painted frescoes in the Villa Imperiale before returning to Florence in 1532.
From 1539 until his death in 1572, Bronzino served as the court painter to Cosimo I, duke of Florence. He was engaged in a variety of commissions, including decorations for the wedding of the duke to Eleonora of Toledo (1539) as well as a Florentine chapel in her honour (1540–45). Frescoes he painted there include Moses Striking the Rock, The Gathering of Manna, and St. John the Evangelist. He also created mythological paintings such as The Allegory of Luxury (also called Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time; c. 1544–45), which reveals his love of complex symbolism, contrived poses, and clear, brilliant colours. By the 1540s he was regarded as one of the premier portrait painters in Florence. His Eleonora of Toledo with Her Son Giovanni and Portrait of a Young Girl with a Prayer Book (c. 1545) are preeminent examples of Mannerist portraiture: emotionally inexpressive, reserved, and noncommittal yet arrestingly elegant and decorative. Bronzino’s great technical proficiency and his stylized rounding of sinuous anatomical forms are also notable. His many other portraits of the royal family include Cosimo in Armour (1543), Giovanni with a Goldfinch (1545), and Cosimo at Age Thirty-Six (1555–56). More on Il Bronzino
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