Room 26
Room closed
Paintings in this room
The date 1514 is just visible on the letter carried by the sitter, although the words are illegible. The inscription in the parapet reads, in primitive French, ‘who loves well is slow to forget’. The sitter wears the Maltese Cross of the Order of Saint John. In 1514 Franciabigio was working for t...
The sitter is almost certainly Girolamo Benivieni (1453–1542), a significant Florentine literary and political figure. Initially one of the intellectuals surrounding the cultured Lorenzo de' Medici, who effectively ruled Florence, he fell under the influence of the Dominican preacher and reformer...
This portrait is one of the earliest and largest known examples of a painting on tinned copper, and the only portrait. The subject is commonly identified as Cardinal Giacomo Savelli (1522–1587), who was made a cardinal at 16 and became Vicar General of Rome in 1560. There is a smaller version of...
The unknown man in this half-length portrait proudly displays an eight-pointed silver cross suspended from a black cord round his neck, which identifies him as a Knight of the Order of Saint John. His left hand clasps a sword. The pose points to the twin aims of the Order: religious and military...
This is the earliest of very few known portraits by Rosso. It was painted in Florence, while he was in the workshop of Andrea del Sarto. It reveals something of Rosso’s eccentricity, particularly in the strange spiky fingers, the curiously abstract style and the characteristically swift way of wo...
The Virgin Mary is seated with her cousin Saint Elizabeth and their sons in a rocky landscape. The infant Christ reclines on his mother’s lap, resting against her arm and laughing mischievously. This is a reduced version of the ‘Tallard Madonna’ (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) signed by A...
The lady in the picture is shown with the attributes of Saint Agatha, the third-century Sicilian martyr who was reported to have been tortured for rejecting the marriage proposal of the Roman governor. A dish with Agatha’s severed breasts and the pliers used to remove them are depicted on the rig...