Portrait of Ferdinando II de' Medici

1626 · Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

portrait

Together with another painting, this is a rare and unusual scientific record of the illness that afflicted the young Ferdinando II in 1626 at the age of 16, when he was not yet Grand Duke. The paintings represent two successive phases of smallpox, on the seventh and ninth day. The picture shown here represents the ninth day when the rash erupted fully.

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About the Artist

Justus Sustermans

1597 – 1681

Flemish painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. During his lifetime Giusto Suttermans (as he signed his name), court painter to the Medici, was considered the foremost portrait painter in Italy, the peer of van Dyck, Rubens or Holbein. His best works show that he deserved his contemporaries' esteem, but time, the extinction of the Medici family and the failure of art historians to recognize the difference between his autograph works and those by his workshop, copyists and contemporary Florentine painters have all contributed to tarnish his once high reputation.

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