Catalogue-2014-Jean-Luc-Baroni

It had a late 19th century carved and gilded frame, which bore a cartouche inscribed in Gothic lettering:
“1510 F. Clouet dit Jehannes 1572 Clouet”. This more recent provenance suggests that the picture may
indeed have left the Italian Peninsula during Napoleonic times, thereafter entering collections in France,
where at some point it was part of an unidentified exhibition, loaned from the Pontremoli collection and
transported by the French company, Chenue (according to labels on the old frame).
Although clearly a depiction of a member of a royal household and despite its fascinating provenance,
the identity of this young woman remains tantalizingly unresolved. The Farnese family had extremely
strong links with the court of Spain; Margaret of Parma, illegitimate daughter of Charles V, married
Ottavio Farnese and their son Alessandro Farnese (1545-1592) was brought up in Spain and in 1565
married the Portuguese princess, Maria d’Aviz (1538-1577), daughter of Prince Eduardo d’Aviz (brother
of Jaoa III) and his cousin, Isabella de Braganza. Their lavish wedding took place in Brussels, according to
the wishes of Filippo II and after long negotiations in Madrid. Identifying the sitter as Maria d’Aviz works
well with the Farnese provenance, and with the presence of Sánchez Coello in Portugal and Madrid
but Maria d’Aviz was 27 at the time of her marriage and the sitter is considerably younger. The painting
would therefore need to have been painted in the period from 1552 to 1555, when Sánchez Coello
was in Lisbon, painting members of the Portuguese royal family, and perhaps sent later to the Farnese
court at the time when marriage negotiations began. For this dating, a stylistic comparison may be made
with the painting on panel in the Belgian Embassy in Madrid generally accepted as by Sánchez Coello
and recently identified as a likeness of Juana de Portugal of 1553 15 . The only two securely identified
depictions of Maria d’Aviz, versions of the same image, both of which are in Parma, show a somewhat
harsher looking face, considerably older, more elongated, with larger features, thinner, arched eyebrows
and a more accentuated nose 16 . There is however a significant resemblance between the young woman
in the present portrait and a painting in the Prado now definitively identified by Annemarie Jordan as
being of the widowed Isabella di Braganza, mother of Maria d’Aviz 17 .
That the portrait was intended as a nuptial image seems extremely likely. As suggested by Annemarie
Jordan, the style of hair is that of an unmarried woman and the ears of wheat embroidered on her dress
are most probably emblems of fertility while the tiny silver branches, can be regarded as symbols of
strength and virtue. The painting is highly realistic, each eyelash delineated, the shading soft around the
mouth and nose suggesting a slight down above her upper lip and her dark eyebrows and pale chestnut
hair are unusual and striking. It is most clearly a painting taken from life 18 and it is worth noting that no
other version of the likeness has so far been found. This is not the case for many of the other portraits of
Spanish, Portuguese and Habsburg royalty, which exist, in some cases, in numerous examples, both as
autograph works by the original artist, be that Mor or Sánchez Coello or Sophonisba Anguissola (who
joined the court of Philip II as painter and lady-in-waiting to his wife Elizabeth de Valois) or copies
by members of their workshops. As noted by Pérez Sánchez, comparatively few of Sánchez Coello’s
paintings have survived although there is abundant documentation concerning the many works paid for
by the King and portraits by him of people unconnected to the court are rarer still.
We are extremely grateful to Annemarie Jordan Gschwend, Professor Clare Robertson, Professor Giuseppe
Bertini, Bill Jordan, Professor Joanna Woodall, Aileen Ribeiro, Lucy Whitaker and Anna Reynolds for their
generous assistance with this note.
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