If you opened the Travel section of Sunday’s New York Times, you saw the best work of art in the paper that day on its page 3: Bronzino’s Portrait of Eleonara of Toledo With Her Son Giovanni (below). It’s the signature image of Bronzino, Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici, which runs from Sept. 24 through January 23 at the Palazzo Strozzi. And how I wish I could travel to Florence to see it.
According to the Palazzo, this is the first monogaphic exhibition ever devoted to the paintings of Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino, though he was born in 1503 and died in 1572 — kind of like Jan Gossart, who’s getting his first solo show in the U.S. at the Met right now (and btw it’s gorgeous. Congratulations to curator Maryan Ainsworth). Gossart, though, had an exhibition of his own in Europe 45 years ago.
Earlier this year, the Metropolitan Museum staged an exhibit of Bronzino’s drawings — to widespread acclaim. It also offered visitors to it a taste of his paintings — with a side-show explaining the recent discovery, via infrared reflectography, of underdrawings in its magnificent Portrait of a Young Man.
So appetite whetted, I was eager to pour through the Palazzo Strozzi’s Bronzino catalogue. It doesn’t disappoint. Bronzino was a star in Florence, and was probably outdone as a portraitist in Italy of the time only by Titian (1490-1576). Bronzino’s pictures are both stagey and realistic, icy and magical. They are secular and religious, composed simply and complexly. His colorings are magnificent. Three works on view were restored specifically for the exhibit, and three hitherto unknown works by Bronzino, “discovered” and now attributed to Bronzino, are on display.
All told, the exhibit boasts 63 paintings by Bronzino, 10 by him and his workshop, plus others by Pontormo, his teacher, and sculptures by his contemporaries, like Cellini.
Alas, it will not travel.
The Palazzo Strozzi has again gone the extra mile to add excitement beyond the show itself. For one, it commissioned a new “contemporary mannierist” musical piece by composer Bruce Adolphe called Of Art and Onions: Homage to Bronzino, based partly on Bronzino’s poems. The piece premiered at the Met (podcast w/ the composer here) — linking the two exhibitions — last March, and made its European debut on Oct. 6. The work, in seven movements, is scored for madrigal choir, harpsicord, viola da gamba and vibraphone.
The Palazzo also published a brochure providing a route through Bronzino’s Florence, so visitors can view his frescoes and other works in churches. And it published a children’s book, Hide and Seek (in Italian and English), and a book about conservation called Bronzino Revealed: The Hidden Secrets of Three Masterpieces.
Not bad for a self-educated son of a butcher.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Uffizi (top) and the Louvre (bottom)