Art in Tuscany | Domenico Ghirlandaio

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists | Domenico Ghirlandaio, painter of Florence

Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's "Ginevra de' Benci" and Renaissance Portraits of Women | The exhibition surveyed the phenomenal rise of female portraiture in Florence from c. 1440 to c. 1540 and was on view in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art from 30 September 2001 through 6 January 2002.

Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza | www.museothyssen.org

Portrait of a Young Woman | Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa | www.museu.gulbenkian.pt

[1] Ghirlandaio and Renaissance Florence' | Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni has traditionally been the iconic image that represents the Old Master Paintings collection of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. An absolute masterpiece within the artist’s oeuvre and within Florentine art, it perfectly and beautifully reflects Renaissance ideals of the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

Giovanna, born on 18 December 1468, was the eighth daughter of Maso di Luca degli Albizzi and Caterina Soderini. She received the type of education considered appropriate for young women of her social status. The most important event in Giovanna’s life was her marriage to Lorenzo Tornabuoni (1468–1497), heir to an influential family with links to the Medici. Their wedding was celebrated in September 1486: the festivities were most lavish and for three days the beautiful Giovanna held centre stage. On 11 October 1487 the young couple’s first child, Giovannino, was born, but tragically, Giovanna died aged nineteen during her second pregnancy the following year. She was buried in the church of Santa Maria Novella on 7 October 1488.

Giovanna has been preserved for posterity by Domenico Ghirlandaio, who around 1489 received the commission for a posthumous portrait intended to hang permanently in a place of honour in the Palazzo Tornabuoni. The painting and its wider context are the focus of the present exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Notably, Ghirlandaio emphasised three aspects of the sitter’s personality — her beauty, her role as the wife of Lorenzo, and her virtue and devoutness.

"Behind every work of art there lies a story. Naturally, the older the work the more difficult it is to trace these stories, and this is particularly the case with most Quattrocento paintings, for which documentation is sparse. Domenico Ghirlandaio's Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni is a notable exception to this rule. There is no mystery to the identity of the portrait's subject, and its original location is well documented.

(...) From early on, Giovanna's grandfather, Luca di Maso degli Albizzi (1382-1458), distanced himself from his older brother Rinaldo and allied himself with the Medici. Luca's worldly goods had remained exempt from the devastating confiscation meted out to his brother in 1434. Luca distinguished himself as the captain of the Florentine Galleys and travelled extensively throughout most of Europe. He married twice. His first wife was Lisabetta di Niccolo' de' Bardi, with whom he was espoused between 1410 and 1425. His second wife, Aurelia di Niccola de' Medici, belonged to a lesser branch of the Medici family. Aurelia bore him six children. The first-born, Maso di Luca (1426-1491), would also marry twice, and it was from his second marriage that Giovanna was born.

(...) Giovanna degli Albizi, noted for her heavenly beauty, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni, cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent, when she was 17 years old. Lorenzo's father, Giovanni di Francesco Tornabuoni, had accumulated great wealth as the manager of the Rome branch of the Medici bank, in addition to acting as the intermediary between the Medici and the pope on numerous occasions. In Florence, Giovanni Tornabuoni established himself as a lover and patron of the arts by first enlarging the family palace and providing it with an imposing façade, and subsequently having the Cappella Maggiore of the church of Santa Maria Novella decorated by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Giovanni had all the means at his disposal to ensure that Lorenzo, his only legitimate son, would become a person well versed in a broad range of subjects and interests and a successful businessman, in accordance with the humanist ideal of the Renaissance man. After Giovanni's sister Lucrezia (1427-1482) married Piero di Cosimo de' Médici (1416-1469) in 1444, the Tornabuoni found themselves in a very favourable position on the social ladder.

Named after his cousin Lorenzo il Magnifico (1448-1492), who was at this time the most powerful man in Florence.

(...) The documentation of the marriage of Lorenzo and Giovanna is more extensive than is usual. Although no notarial deeds have been preserved, the absence of these is fully compensated for by other sources. One exceptional record comes in the form of a celebratory nuptial poem, known as an epithalamium, composed by the humanist Naldo Naldi; it will be regularly cited in this catalogue. The tradition of recording the splendours of a wedding in this kind of literary form was much more in line with the more courtly North Italian culture than the world of the Florentine mercantile aristocracy and further illustrates the princely tastes and lofty ambitions of the Tornabuoni, both father and son. (...)"  

[2] Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian was an Armenian businessman and philanthropist. He played a major role in making the petroleum reserves of the Middle East available to Western development. By the end of his life he had become one of the world's wealthiest individuals and his art acquisitions considered one of the greatest private collections.
Calouste Gulbenkian revealed his passion for art at an early age. This reflected his origins in Cappadocia — a major crossroads of religions and art--and Constantinople — another crossroads of civilizations and the capital of the Romans, Greeks, and Ottoman Turks. Throughout his life, he assembled an eclectic and unique collection that was influenced by his travels and his personal taste. Calouste Gulbenkian's collection of paintings includes works by Bouts, Van de Weyden, Lochner, Cima de Conegliano, Carpaccio, Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Guardi, Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence, Fragonard, Corot, Renoir, Nattier, Boucher, Manet, Degas and Monet. A favourite sculpture of his was the marble original of Houdon's famous Diana, which had belonged to Catherine of Russia and which Gulbenkian purchased from the Hermitage Museum in 1930.
The collection grew over the years. The Paris collection was divided for security reasons and part was sent to London. In 1936, the collection of Egyptian art was entrusted to the care of the British Museum while the finest paintings went to the National Gallery. Later, in 1948 and 1950, the same works would be sent on to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
As his collection grew, Gulbenkian grew more concerned about how to preserve his achievement but also how to avoid paying taxes on his legacy. In 1937 he started discussions with Kenneth Clark, who had advised him in assembling his collection, about a “Gulbenkian Institute” at the National Gallery in London. However he was declared an “enemy under the act” by the British Government during the Second World War because he had followed the French Government to Vichy as a member of the Persian diplomatic delegation. The British temporarily confiscated his share of the oil from the Iraq Petroleum Company. Although this was a technical legal decision--and after the war the concession was returned to him with compensation--this action of his adopted country irritated him as he suspected that his partners were using the British Government to squeeze him out of the partnership.
Consequently he then considered the National Gallery of Art in Washington as a potential home for his collection and in 1943 Lord Radcliffe, his British lawyer, became his chief discussion partner and confidante. At the time of his death Gulbenkian does not appear to have decided where he wanted his collection to be housed and finally left it to Radcliffe to decide. However it was clear that Gulbenkian wanted his collection brought together under one roof where people could appreciate what one man could achieve in his lifetime.
After his death, arduous negotiations with the French Government and the National Gallery in Washington ensued. In 1960, the entire collection was brought to Portugal, where it was exhibited at the Palace of the Marquises of Pombal (Oeiras) from 1965 to 1969. Fourteen years after the death of this illustrious collector his wish was fulfilled, when the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum-specially built to house his collection-opened in Lisbon.

[3] Bernard Berenson (in a letter to Michael Friedsam. June 16, 1924), attributes it to Domenico Ghirlandaio, identifies the sitter as the lady whose portrait appears in the fresco of Saint Francis Raising the Dead Child, in the chapel of the Sassetti family in the church of the Santa Trinita, Florence.