Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio

Francis Richard Charteris, 10th Earl of Wemyss and March (1818-1914), Gosford House, Longniddry, until 1909;
Private collection, until 1952;
With Wildenstein, New York, by 1958.

Paris, Galerie d'Art l'Oeil, Tableaux italiens: XIVe-XVIIe siècle, June - July 1973, cat. no. 6.

B. Berenson, The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, New York 1909, p. 166 (as Piero di Cosimo, with the sitter listed as anonymous);
R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian School of Painting, The Hague 1931, vol. XIII, p. 378 under note 3, as Piero di Cosimo;
Tableaux italiens: XIVe-XVIIe siècle, Galerie d'Art l'Oeil, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1973, cat. no. 6, reproduced.

The colours of the original are a touch cooler than they appear in the catalogue illustration. The stable, rectangular support consists of a single panel cradled to the reverse. There is an old vertical crack in the centre of the panel running approx. 15 cm. down from the top edge, as visible in the catalogue illustration. The paint surface is secure although substantially abraded, particularly in the darker areas of his costume. Scattered retouching work is visible to the naked eye in the lighter grey of the oval background and this is confirmed under UV light which reveals some minor scattered retouchings to the face, and some more significant retouchings along the margins of his costume and hat and in the background. Offered in a wooden tabernacle style frame in good condition, with painted details and an inserted slip which frames the portrait as an oval.
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Piero Soderini was born into one of Florence's wealthiest families. His younger brother Francesco became a cardinal and bishop of Volterra, while Piero himself was elected Prior of the city in 1481, was subsequently appointed ambassador to France by Piero di Lorenzo de' Medici in 1493 and was finally elected gonfaloniere for life in 1502. Under his rule Florence's long war with Pisa was brought to an end with the capture of that city in 1509.

Two other portraits of Soderini by Ridolfo are known: the first was with Frascione in Florence by 1974 and shows the sitter in the same bust-length pose as the present work but with a landscape behind him. The second is in the Musée de Chièvres in Poitiers and presents him in the same pose but has been extended into a half-length portrait.