This imposing portrait exemplifies the elegance and restraint associated with mid-sixteenth-century Florentine portraiture. Trained by Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572), Alessandro Allori was often described as the ‘second Bronzino’. A close friend of the Allori family, Bronzino took young Alessandro under his wing after the death of his father in 1541. Between 1554 and 1560, Alessandro spent considerable time in Rome, where, as recounted by Raffaello Borghini in Il Riposo (1585), as well as studying antique sculpture and the work of Michelangelo, he also painted ‘several portraits such as that of Tommaso de’ Bardi, and of Lady Ortensia Montauto, his wife […]’.¹

The portrait of Tommaso de’ Bardi was considered lost until 2010, when a small black-and-white photograph of the painting in the Berenson archive at Villa I Tatti, Florence, was identified as the lost portrait, prompting a connection with its preparatory drawing at the British Museum, the portrait of Ortensia Montauto de’ Bardi now in the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence, and their description in Borghini’s account. At the time of this discovery, it was also proposed that the two paintings were conceived as pendants, an interpretation supported by the signature on the present portrait, ALES· FLO· (Alessandro of Florence), which when read in conjunction with the inscription on Ortensia’s portrait, IN ROMA MDLVIIII (in Rome 1559), records their location and date.

In its cool detachment, smooth surface, attention to detail and carefully constructed presentation of identity, the portrait recalls the example of Allori’s master, Bronzino. The sitter’s concentrated expression is accentuated by the detail of the vein at his temple, the austerity of his clothing contrasting with his crisp white collar. He gestures towards a statuette of Fame prominently positioned beside him. She holds the palle, or balls, of the Medici insignia in her left arm, while raising two trumpets – one in good repair denotes truth, the other broken instrument here references infamy. This motif suggests a link between the sitter and the Medici, and in this case a possible connection to the painting’s likely pendant. Ortensia was a member of an important banking family, the Montauto, who plotted an unsuccessful rebellion against Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1554, leading to the family’s banishment to Rome. This tentative interpretation allows the statuette to be read as an allusion to the strained ties between the Medici and the Bardi and Montauto families, imbuing the portrait with an ambiguous reference to political reputation, allegiance and scandal.

¹ R. Borghini, Il Riposo di Raffaello Borghini, Florence 1585, A.M. Biscioni (ed.), Florence 1730, p. 511.