(Florence 1535–1607)
Portrait of a young girl in a richly embroidered dress, wearing a long coral beads necklace, possibly a member of the House of Medici,
oil on canvas, 45 x 38 cm, framed

We are grateful to Marta Privitera for suggesting the attribution of the present composition (written communication).

The present portrait immediately recalls the series of portraits of children from the House of Medici by Agnolo Bronzino, who was Allori´s adopted father. Marta Privitera considers the present painting to be a charactersitc work by the artist and compares the face with that of the Christ Child in the painting The Madonna and Saints in Cardiff, National Museum, dated to circa 1585. The girl has a similar rounded face, rosy cheeks, a straight nose. A comparable dress can be found in the Portrait of a Girl with Pink Bows, which dates to Alessandro Allori´s late period, within the last two decades of the 16th Century and the first years of the 17th Century.

The present painting is dated on stylistic and historic grounds to the final years of the 16th century. Privitera compares the dress to a similar costume worn in a portrait of Cristina di Lorena by Scipione Pulzone in the Uffizi, dated to 1590. The Spanish influence in women’s fashion is shown by the high millstone collar and the slashed sleeves. The sitter does not appear to be older that four years old. The present portrait is very simliar to a posthumous portrait of Eleonora di Toledo, which was part of the decoration of the Studiolo di Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio, and another work by Allori, the Portrait of a Medici Princess, probably Maria de Medici, today at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

After the death of his father in 1540, Allori was adopted by Bronzino, a friend of his father, and he trained in Bronzino’s workshop. From 1554 to 1560 Allori was in Rome, where he studied antique statuary and the works of Michelangelo and where he became known as a portrait painter. His first documented work on his return to Florence was an altarpiece, heavily influenced by Michelangelo, depicting the Last Judgement, painted in 1560 for the Montauti Chapel, SS Annunziata. Allori was involved in a number of projects relating to Florence’s recently formed (1563) Accademia del Disegno. These included preparation of the decoration for the funeral of Michelangelo in 1564 and for the marriage the following year of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s son, Francesco (later Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany) to Joanna of Austria.