PONTORMO, Jacopo
(b. 1494, Pontormo, d. 1557, Firenze)

Alessandro de' Medici

1534-35
Oil on panel, 35 x 26 cm
Art Institute, Chicago

This is a preparatory study of the head of Duke Alessandro de' Medici for his large-scale portrait, now in Philadelphia. This picture remained in Florence and was available over the following decades as an official image of the duke for artists to copy. There are more than twenty known version of the image.