Pamono Florentine Artist, Portrait of Knight Pietro Strozzi, 1600s-1700s, Oil on Canvas, Framed> Old Masters

Equestrian portrait of Pietro Strozzi (Florence, 1511 – Thionville, 1558)

Oil on canvas
cm. 79 x 115 – Framed cm. 92 x 127

A brave knight, proud in his sumptuous armor outlined with golden ornaments, intent on controlling his rearing horse is placed in the center of our painting. In the background a landscape of the Tuscan Apennines, with the army troops who are preparing to fight a battle.

It would be the leader Pietro Strozzi (Florence, 1511 – Thionville, 1558) immortalized here during one of the phases of the war of Siena (battle of Marciano): when, in July 1554, the Medici army together with the imperial allies, after having besieged Marciano in French hands, was attacked by the army of Florentine exiles commanded by Piero Strozzi.

The same event was often depicted in sixteenth-century painting, for example by Giovanni Stradano (Bruges, 1523-1605) or by the pupil Antonio Tempesta (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630), a leading artist for the seventeenth-century development of the pictorial genre of the ‘battle’; the canvas, as a whole, takes up the style and compositional choices of their production, both prominent exponents in the culture of late Mannerism of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, emulated by many authors of the period.

The equestrian portrait of the leader highlights the armor, in its splendor and richness, which recalls those prevalent in the Tuscan courts during the 16th century, drawing inspiration from ancient art, from the paintings of the time and above all from the widely distributed engravings of the disciples of Raphael and Giulio Romano.

The detail of the mask imprinted on the shield is very beautiful, one of the imaginative decorations typical of the restless period of Mannerism.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The work is completed by a pleasant gilded wooden frame and is sold with a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic sheet.