Attributed to TIBERIO TITI (died 1603)

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Details

Attributed to TIBERIO TITI (died 1603)

Portrait of Carlo Di Ferdinando de'Medici (c. 1596-1666), aged 2, standing full length, wearing a white costume with lace ruff and cuffs, holding a hyacinth, beside a table with an armorial shield bearing the sitter's coat-of-arms and a glass vase with flowers

inscribed with the coat-of-arms and the name of the sitter and dated '1597/D CARLO.A II'--oil on canvas
39 7/8 x 31 3/8in. (101.3 x79.9cm.)

Provenance

Duke of Westminster; his sale, Christies, London, July 4, 1924, lot 55, as Santi di Tito, Portrait of a Girl (52 gns. to Spencer)
with P. & D. Colnaghi, London, where purchased in 1950 by
Mr. Prewitt Semmes, Detroit, Michigan, and by descent to the present owner

Literature

K. Langedijk, The Portraits of the Medici, I, 1981, pp. 176 and 337, no. 10, fig. 15,10, as attributed to Tiberio Titi
F. Cappi Bentivegna, Abbigliamento e costume nella pittura italiana. Rinascimento, I, 1962, pl. 516, as Santi di Tito

Lot Essay

The present portrait is the earliest known representation of Carlo de Medici (c. 1596-1666), the third son of Ferdinando I, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1549-1609) and Christine of Lorraine (1565-1636). In 1615 he was created cardinal.

Langedijk (loc. cit.) attributes the present painting to Tiberio Titi, a Medici portraitist, who trained in the workshop of his father Santo di Tito. Langedijk suggests that the present painting along with two other youthful portraits of Eleonora and Francesco de'Medici (all three children of Ferdinando I) are the earliest identifiable works by Tiberio. She also notes that this may be the portrait mentioned in the 1654-55 inventory of Poggio Imperiale, Florence, of which there is a copy in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna