NORTHERN ITALIAN, 16TH CENTURY | DOUBLE PORTRAIT POSSIBLY OF GALEAZZO MARIA SFORZA AND BONA OF SAVOY

The portrait of the man in the foreground bears a marked similarity to representations of Galeazzo Maria Sforza (note his portrait by Pietro Benci), whilst the image of the woman is close to portraits of Bona of Savoy (see her portrait by Ambrogio Bevilacqua). Another version of the present model (though probably by another lapidary) is in the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel (catalogued as 16th century). Interestingly, there appears to be a familial resemblance between members of the Sforza family in cameo carving since there is a similarity between the image of Galeazzo Maria in the present glyptic to the portrait of his brother Ludovico Maria Sforza (Il Moro) in a cameo in the Medici collections at the Museo degli Argenti in the Pitti Palace, Florence (inv. no. Gemme 1921, n. 109). The hairstyle seen in both the present cameo and the Pitti stone appear to have been adopted by successive generations of Sforza men.