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Lot Essay
Born in Florence, and trained in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto, Jacopino del Conte gained fame as one of the leading portrait painters of the mid-sixteenth century. He moved to Rome in 1536, working extensively on the decorative cycle of San Giovanni Decollato, and quickly demonstrated his excellence in portraiture: Vasari referenced his talent, explaining he was ‘molto inclinato a ritrarre di naturale’ (G. Vasari, Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori et architetti, III, 2, Bologna, 1647, p. 266), while Baglione recorded a remarkable list of sitters, including ‘all the Popes of his time […], all the Cardinals, Roman Princes, Ambassadors and nobility’ (G. Baglione, Le vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti, Rome, 1649, p. 75).
This panel, newly discovered and finely preserved, shows one such key sitter, a significant cardinal of Jacopino’s lifetime, Niccolò Gaddi. Numerous documents attest that Jacopino was close to the family of Pope Paul III and those in his immediate circle, and he became the de facto portraitist to this powerful Roman elite, taking over from Sebastiano del Piombo. Niccolò’s family held key positions of influence: one brother, Luigi, was head of one of the city’s wealthiest banks, which had supported the Curia since the papacy of Leo X, while the other, Giovanni, was a collector of refined taste. Niccolò himself became cardinal on 3 May 1527, days before the infamous Sack of Rome; his rise to such a position was undoubtedly aided by the remarkable strength that his family held in the city during the 1520s. After the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici in 1537, Niccolò, together with fellow cardinals Giovanni Salviati and Niccolò Ridolfi, moved back to Florence in the hope of regaining power but it was a hope extinguished by Cosimo I de’ Medici, forcing them back to Rome. They nonetheless continued to maintain strong links to Florence, welcoming numerous Tuscan artists and cultural figures who made the trip to the papal city.
The discovery of a letter from 4 September 1545, from Paolo Giovio to Alessandro Farnese, confirmed that Gaddi and Jacopino knew each other (‘Gaddi è ito a Fermo e ha menato via Iacopino pittore’) and the present portrait can be dated to around this time, 1545-50, coinciding with a possible visit by Jacopino to Fermo, or in Rome shortly thereafter. In line with other portraits from the same period, such as the Portrait of Paul III with a cardinal in the church of Santa Francesca Romana in Rome, Jacopino paints the drapery with assured, faceted folds, and shows the sitter’s features with typical sculptural modelling. The panel also offers an insight into working practices of the time: on the reverse a preliminary idea of the portrait was sketched out, with traces still visible of the drawing of the outline of the cloak as it falls over the sitter’s shoulder. A similar date is likely for the highly comparable portrait that Jacopino painted of Gaddi, which is however on canvas, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The latter was attributed to the artist by Iris Cheney in 1954, whilst the identity of the sitter was determined by William Suida in 1958. Although on different supports the two portraits are very similar, the main difference being the intricate carving of the arms of the chair that appears in the Vienna picture. The emergence of the present panel, whose attribution has been confirmed by Carlo Falciani (in a private communication to the current owner), confirms Jacopino’s standing in Rome at the time, adding to the rich iconography of portraiture in the sixteenth century.
This panel, newly discovered and finely preserved, shows one such key sitter, a significant cardinal of Jacopino’s lifetime, Niccolò Gaddi. Numerous documents attest that Jacopino was close to the family of Pope Paul III and those in his immediate circle, and he became the de facto portraitist to this powerful Roman elite, taking over from Sebastiano del Piombo. Niccolò’s family held key positions of influence: one brother, Luigi, was head of one of the city’s wealthiest banks, which had supported the Curia since the papacy of Leo X, while the other, Giovanni, was a collector of refined taste. Niccolò himself became cardinal on 3 May 1527, days before the infamous Sack of Rome; his rise to such a position was undoubtedly aided by the remarkable strength that his family held in the city during the 1520s. After the assassination of Alessandro de’ Medici in 1537, Niccolò, together with fellow cardinals Giovanni Salviati and Niccolò Ridolfi, moved back to Florence in the hope of regaining power but it was a hope extinguished by Cosimo I de’ Medici, forcing them back to Rome. They nonetheless continued to maintain strong links to Florence, welcoming numerous Tuscan artists and cultural figures who made the trip to the papal city.
The discovery of a letter from 4 September 1545, from Paolo Giovio to Alessandro Farnese, confirmed that Gaddi and Jacopino knew each other (‘Gaddi è ito a Fermo e ha menato via Iacopino pittore’) and the present portrait can be dated to around this time, 1545-50, coinciding with a possible visit by Jacopino to Fermo, or in Rome shortly thereafter. In line with other portraits from the same period, such as the Portrait of Paul III with a cardinal in the church of Santa Francesca Romana in Rome, Jacopino paints the drapery with assured, faceted folds, and shows the sitter’s features with typical sculptural modelling. The panel also offers an insight into working practices of the time: on the reverse a preliminary idea of the portrait was sketched out, with traces still visible of the drawing of the outline of the cloak as it falls over the sitter’s shoulder. A similar date is likely for the highly comparable portrait that Jacopino painted of Gaddi, which is however on canvas, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The latter was attributed to the artist by Iris Cheney in 1954, whilst the identity of the sitter was determined by William Suida in 1958. Although on different supports the two portraits are very similar, the main difference being the intricate carving of the arms of the chair that appears in the Vienna picture. The emergence of the present panel, whose attribution has been confirmed by Carlo Falciani (in a private communication to the current owner), confirms Jacopino’s standing in Rome at the time, adding to the rich iconography of portraiture in the sixteenth century.