Giovanni Brina

This portrait depicts Cosimo I de' Medici close to the end of his life, aged in his mid-fifties. The painting is comparable to other portraits of Cosimo by Brina - a half-length in the Museo Stibbert, Florence,¹ and a very similar bust-length, sold Pananti, Florence, 16 April 2016, lot 245. The present portrait shows the Grand Duke in richer dress than this last work, however - here, he wears a sable-lined cloak, and a chain bearing the Order of the Golden Fleece, which he received in 1546. This painting also relates to Brina's triple portrait of Cosimo I, with his son Francesco de' Medici and the doctor Andrea Pasquali, formerly in the Guidi collection, Florence.² Alessandro Nesi dates this portrait on the basis of style and the appearance of the sitter, to the first half of the 1570s.

¹ See A. Nesi, 'Alcuni ritratti medicei di Francesco e Giovanni Brina', in Medicea, 8, 2011, p. 46, reproduced fig. 6.

² See Nesi 2011, p. 47, reproduced fig. 7.