Jacopo Ligozzi Verona 1547 - 1627 Florence

Jacopo Ligozzi was one of the most productive and versatile artists working for the Medici grandukes in Florence in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.  During his long career he painted on both large and small scale, executed scientific illustrations and finished drawings, designed tapestries, glass, pietre dure and precious objects, especially in metal and stone.

This painting depicting the Agony in the Garden occupies an important position within Ligozzi's corpus as it represents one of his earliest works as a painter in Tuscany at a time when he was primarily employed by Grand Duke Francesco I to execute drawings in bodycolor of animals and plants.  According to Conigliello (see Literature below), this work can be dated to the middle of the 1580s and can be compared stylistically to the Sacrifice of Isaac (now in the Uffizi, Florence) and the St. Jerome in the Wilderness (now in the Museo di Casa Vasari, Arezzo) both of which were painted in 1587 for the Tribune of the Uffizi.  In all three pictures, the composition is constructed in a similar manner, with the main figures in the foreground sheltered by rocks and trees, and an opening to the right into a forest landscape.  The physical types and technique are similar in all three panels.  An early dating of this Agony in the Garden is further supported by comparison with a copy of Pontormo's fresco at Galluzo of Christ before Pilate which has recently been attributed to Ligozzi and dated to 1582 (see M. Bietti, "Pontormo copiato," in Da Pontormo & per Pontormo, Florence 1996, pp. 76-77).

Both its artistic merit and the quality of the panel itself suggest that the Agony in the Garden represented a major commission for Ligozzi, however, for whom it was painted remains unknown.  Two other works by Ligozzi of the same subject, in which he reused the image of Christ supported by the angel, are a drawing (circa 1606) in the Musée du Louvre and the central painting on copper (1608) in the portable altar, now in the Allen Memorial Art Musuem, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.