Portrait of Francesco de’ Medici

Etching, 1634 circa, signed at the bottom on the right with bound monogram SDB; latin inscription in the cartouche FRANCISCUS EX PRINCIPIBUS / ETRURIAE.

Magnificent example, printed on contemporary laid paper, wide margins, in excellent condition.

Portrait in oval of Francesco de’ Medici (16 October 1614 – 25 July 1634), son of Cosimo II, at his age of 19, bust ¾ to the right, flanked by arms. He was the fourth son of Grand Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany and his wife, Maria Maddalena of Austria. He died, unmarried, from plague during the Siege of Ratisbon, 1634.

The portrait by Della Bella must have been made posthumously for Francesco's funeral book, published in 1634 Esequie del Serenissimo Principe Francesco celebrate in Fiorenza…il dì 30 d’agosto 1634, descritte da Andrea Cavalcanti (Landini, 1634) . Its probable source is the portrait of Francesco by Justus Susterman in the Royal Apartments at the Pitti Palace. The head and features appear to be the same, though reversed in the etching. The armor, lace collar, and scarf are similar. Della Bella shows Francesco hatless, and presumably with his own hair, rather than in the wig of the painted portrait. 

Stefano della Bella was one of the most interesting and original engravers in 17th-century Florence and can be considered the only brilliant continuator of Jacques Callot's work. His artistic education began in Florence in the workshop of the goldsmiths Gasparo Mola and Orazio Vanni, and the precision of sign, typical of the goldsmith's art, will remain characteristic of his style. He then studied under Giovanni Battista Vanni and perhaps also under Cantagallina and Cesare Dandini, but soon turned to engraving. His real master can be considered Jacques Callot, the French engraver who stayed in Florence for a long time and left a strong imprint on the city's artistic scene.

The most important years of his career were the ones he spent in Paris, from 1639 to 1650, salaried by Lorenzo de' Medici: he worked together with Israel Silvestre, with the publishers Langlois, Ciartres and Pierre Mariette, for French printers and for commissions of great prestige, such as those of 1641 for Cardinal Richelieu, who entrusted him with illustrations of his warlike exploits.

Around 1647, during a trip to Holland, where he executed etchings with views of the port of Amsterdam, he met Rembrandt, and from that date we note a profound echo of the Dutchman's art in Della Bella's graphic work.

Bibliografia

De Vesme – Massar, n. 36, p. 54; J. Talbierska, Stefano della Bella: Etchings from the Collection of the Print Room of the Warsaw University Library. Warsaw, 2001, cat. n. 10, p. 43.