TOMMASO MANZUOLI, CALLED MASO DI SAN FRIANO (FLORENCE 1531-1571)
TOMMASO MANZUOLI, CALLED MASO DI SAN FRIANO (FLORENCE 1531-1571)
TOMMASO MANZUOLI, CALLED MASO DI SAN FRIANO (FLORENCE 1531-1571)
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TOMMASO MANZUOLI, CALLED MASO DI SAN FRIANO (FLORENCE 1531-1571)

Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, with a landscape beyond

Details
TOMMASO MANZUOLI, CALLED MASO DI SAN FRIANO (FLORENCE 1531-1571)
Portrait of a gentleman, half-length, with a landscape beyond
oil on panel
30 ½ x 25 ¼ in. (77.5 x 64.1 cm.)

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Taylor Alessio
Taylor Alessio Junior Specialist, Head of Part II

Lot Essay

Born in 1531 in San Frediano, the part of Florence that gave him his nickname, Tommaso Manzuoli, known as Maso da San Friano, became a leading artist of his time. Trained in the workshops of Pier Francesco Foschi and Carlo Portelli, he developed a highly original, eloquent and refined style that led Vincenzo Borghini to mark him out, in 1565, as of one of the young ‘valenti e fieri’ artists that were forging paths outside of the major Florentine workshops.

Maso has been the focus of several publications since the first study to draw attention to his work was made by Luciano Berti sixty years ago. His portraits were the subject of an article by Peter Cannon-Brookes published in the Burlington Magazine in 1966, with further research in subsequent decades attempting to provide a more coherent, chronological order of his work. One of the key points for the dating of Maso’s oeuvre is the Double Male Portrait in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, dated 1556, and a fundamental reference for his activity as a portraitist in the years preceding his involvement in the Studiolo of Francesco I. This present, recently discovered portrait, is dated 1560, shortly after the Capodimonte picture; Carlo Falciani, who has confirmed the attribution in a private communication to the owner, notes the indebtedness here to Portelli in the sharp drawing of the features, and the similarity to the younger sitter in the 1556 picture. He also highlights the characteristic manner in which the hands are painted, which can be compared to those in The Diamond Mine, arguably Maso’s most renowned work, one of two panels he was commissioned to make for the Studiolo in 1570-1, shortly before his untimely early death.

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