Florentine School, mid-17th Century

The canvas has an old lining, the paint surface is dirty with some accretions, and has an old discoloured and uneven varnish. There is no major damage visible to the naked eye. Inspection under UV light reveals very little - the varnish fluoresces opaque. There are only a handful of small scattered retouchings in the flesh of her chest and in her face, and a cluster of retouchings in the forehead of the sitter. Otherwise it is in seemingly original but dirty condition. Offered in an ornate carved and giltwood frame in good condition.
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The sitter in this portrait has recently been identified as Vittoria della Rovere (1622–94), the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, wife of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici (1610–70). The Duchess sat for Sustermans on a number of occasions, and in a portrait depicting her at a fairly young age (Medici collection, Florence), we recognise her cupid’s bow lips, the line of her nose, her curly hair, and the prominent dimpled chin that we find in the present likeness.¹

Even more notable is the song sheet the sitter is holding. The line of text comes from a vanitas poem written by none other than Salvator Rosa (1615–73), painter and poet, which begins with these words: 'Sensi, voi, ciò che godete / il finire ha per natura; / occhi miei, quanto vedete / con tacite rapine il tempo fura…'.² The music accompanying the verses is a cantata attributed to Marc’ Antonio Cesti (1623–69), who came to Florence from Arezzo, and later became a close friend of Rosa in Volterra.

Vittoria was a great patron of painters – she was the last heir of her family art collection assembled in Urbino and responsible, through her marriage, for it passing on to the Grand Dukes of Tuscany – but she was also depicted as a patron of poetry, as well as in the guise of various saints and mythological figures, such as the goddess Flora. Here it seems she is represented as a patron of music. It is possible that her gesturing towards the manuscript is an indication that she may have commissioned the work – the text, the music, or even both – but her raised finger might also be a sign of admonition in keeping with the vanitas nature of the text.

1. Inv. 1890, n. 2251; see Sustermans. Sessant’anni alla corte dei Medici, exh. cat., Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti, Florence 1983, p. 24 , cat. no. 4, reproduced.
2. S. Rosa, Lamento, in U. Limentani, Poesie e lettere inedite di Salvator Rosa, Florence 1950, p. 43.