(Florence c. 1515–1598 Rome)
Head of a Woman, a Sybil,
oil on panel, 50 x 42 cm, framed

Provenance:
Bardi collection, Rome;
European Private Collection

We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth Pilliod for suggesting the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a digital photograph. Nothing is recorded of the early artistic life of Jacopino in Florence, although Vasari claimed he had been a student of Andrea del Sarto. Around 1536 he moved to Rome, where he contributed to the decoration of the Oratorio di San Giovanni Decollato. Thereafter he had a thriving career not only in fresco, but also in devotional panels, and portraits. A nucleus of paintings assumed to have been painted in Florence before the artist’s departure for Rome has been constructed, mainly by Federico Zeri, (see F. Zeri, Rivedendo Jacopino del Conte, in: Antologia di Belle Arti, II, May 1978, [reprinted 1994], p. 114, fig. 2. 978) which exhibits stylistic traits derived from the formative influence of Andrea del Sarto, together with hints of the other artists who influenced Jacopino, including Pontormo, Rosso, and Michelangelo. These paintings include several that compare closely with the Head of a Woman, for example, a Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie), the Madonna of Charity (Florence, Museo dell’Ospedale degli Innocenti), and a Saint Catherine of Alexandria (formerly Cape Town; see Zeri, ibid, 1978, p. 114-120).

The image of a woman with elaborate and slightly exotically styled hair recalls Michelangelo’s Teste divine, but is painted with the palette and facial type derived from del Sarto’s late manner. The rounded contours of her face and slightly heavy outlines and shadows around the chin, nose and brow, can be compared with the Madonna in Andrea del Sarto’s Pala Gambassi or the Pala di Poppi (both Florence, Galleria Palatina). Jacopino has emphasized the outlines of the woman’s full lips and traced the cleft in her chin in emulation of the same features of Sarto’s late style in his Florentine period paintings.

While the identification of the figure is elusive, she reacts as if beginning to speak to a presence entering from the left. The bands containing her thick brunette hair, painted in salmon pink and green, resemble thin fronds where they meet across her brow. She is likely to be a Sybil or a personification or ideal figure.

We are grateful to Professor Elizabeth Pilliod for her help in cataloguing of the present painting.