Francesco de' Rossi, called Francesco Salviati

William Payne Whitney (1876-1927), New York;
By inheritance to his widow Helen Julia Hay Whitney (1876-1944);
By whom bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 1945 (inv. no. 45.128.11).

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, 15 June - 15 August 1971 (no catalogue).

I.H. Cheney, Francesco Salviati (1510–1563), PhD. diss., New York University 1963, vol. 2, p. 489 (under Attributed Portraits);
F. Zeri and E.E. Gardner, Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School, New York 1971, p. 100, reproduced plate 118;
B.B. Fredericksen and F. Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Mass. 1972, pp. 180, 525, 608;
K. Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by artists born in or before 1865, A Summary Catalogue, New York 1980, vol. I, p. 165, reproduced vol. II, p. 39;
L. Mortari, Francesco Salviati, Rome 1992, p. 148, cat. no. 121, reproduced;
K. Baetjer, European Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by artists born in or before 1865, A Summary Catalogue, New York 1995, p. 37, reproduced;
A. Tamvaki, in El Greco in Italy and Italian Art, exhibition catalogue, Athens 1995, pp. 268, 490, reproduced in color, fig. 4 (all the above as by Salviati);

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This interesting painting was probably cleaned in the last twenty or thirty years, but no restorations were applied at that time. Therefore, what one sees at present is the actual condition of the paint layer. The canvas has a 75 or 100 year old lining, which is still effective in many ways. However, there is a thin vertical tear in the background above the shoulder on the right side, a fairly noticeably dent in the upper right, a horizontal tear in the center of the picture, and a vertical break in the lower left immediately to the left of the hand. These structurally damages are slightly raised, and a fresh lining would certainly return them to plane and make effective conservation much easier. One can see that the hands, some of the background, and quite a lot of the face are in very fresh condition. The thinness in the face, cheeks and beard can be quite effectively restored, without giving any impression that these areas of the work are thin. The same can be said of the other areas of thinness in the picture. The deep warm colored glaze is slightly abraded in the curtains on either side; some retouches will be required here to soften this thinness. There is old frame abrasion along the edges, and particularly across the top edge; there is possibly an added piece of canvas across this top edge. The main focus of the retouches would be in the coat of the figure, where quite a lot of thinness has developed, particularly in the sleeve and in a vertical area in the center. There may not be a point in trying to present this picture with a minimum amount of retouching; the picture would probably improve noticeably if retouches were carefully and thoroughly applied. While, the condition may be quite worrying as one sees the picture today, this is simply because it is un-retouched, allowing one to see the condition as it really is. I feel strongly about the potential of the picture, and look forward to it being restored.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Francesco de' Rossi took the name Salviati in homage to one of his patrons in Rome, Cardinal Giovanni Salviati (1490-1553). After studying in Florence with Baccio Bandinelli and Andrea del Sarto, Salviati became one of the leading exponents of the new mannerist style which swept over the city. He was a prolific and much sought-after portraitist who was much admired. Indeed his fellow painter and chronichler Giorgio Vasari was not shy in his praise for Salviati's work and for his portraits in particular:

"He gave great beauty and grace to every kind of head...He had a very graceful and delicate manner in painting draperies...and clothing his figures in new fashions of dress; and he showed fancy and variety in head-dresses, foot-wear and every other kind of adornment."¹

The stylized pose of the hands and the interior setting, with its partly drawn curtains, betray the influence of Parmigianino and North Italian currents, sugesting that the work was painted during or shortly after Salviati's sojourn to Parma and the North of Italy between the years 1539-43.² The portrait does not afford us any clues as to the identity of the sitter but from his elegant clothing we might infer that he was a wealthy merchant.



1. G. Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, trans. G Du C. de Vere, New York 1979, vol. III, p. 1767.
2. Compare, for example, the setting chosen by the Ferrarese painter Giolamo da Carpi in his Portrait of a Man with a Cat in the Galleria Nazionale in Rome (see A. Mezzetti, Girolamo da Ferrara detto da Carpi, Milan 1977, p. 98, cat. no. 123, reproduced fig. 53 and in color plate XIX). Interestingly, an old inscription on the stretcher attributes the work to Pordenone (1484-1539), the name given to Giovanni Andrea Sacchis, a mannerist artist active in the Veneto.