Portrait of Ferdinando II de' Medici Dressed in Oriental Costume

1640 · Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

portrait

Called "the wisest of princes and the prince of wise men" - perhaps for his protection of Galilei and other scientists - Ferdinando II also enjoyed life. However, the sumptuous entertainments held in the Palazzo Pitti and the galleries and theatre of the Uffizi were underwritten by extraordinarily heavy taxation. Now too grand for trade, the Medici were sliding into chronic financial crisis.

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Portrait of Ferdinando II de' Medici Dressed in Oriental Costume

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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