Justus Sustermans (1597-1681) Presumed Portrait Of Ferdinand II De Medicis

Justus Sustermans (1597; 1681) attributed. Portrait of a young Florentine prince.

Canvas measuring 72 cm by 55 cm
Large old frame measuring 100 cm by 81 cm

This superb portrait of a young Florentine prince is made in a feigned oval. The outline is painted in faux marble. An inscription on the frame on the back suggests the portrait of Ferdinand II de Medici (1610-1670). We know of two other portraits of Ferdinand II painted by the artist, the first, a young boy on horseback, and the second, older, around 18 years old, in armor (Pitti Palace, Florence). Our portrait dated 1625 would therefore suggest Ferdinand at the age of 15. Comparing the ages and facial features makes this hypothesis entirely credible without giving us any certainty. In any case, he is a young Florentine prince. The fleurs-de-lys, the emblem of Florence, at both ends of the lower brooch, reinforce this hypothesis, as does the date of creation, 1625, the exact date of the painter's return to the city after a trip to Vienna.

Justus Sustermans (1597; 1681)

A pupil first of Willem de Vos in Antwerp (1609), then of Frans II Pourbus in Paris (1616), he lived in Florence from 1619, called by Grand Duke Cosimo II. He joined a group of Parisian tapestry makers, summoned to Florence by Cosimo II de Medici for the Medici Tapestry. He then settled in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and began working as a portrait painter in the service of the Medici and the Florentine aristocracy. In 1620 he became court painter and the official artist of the last Medici, painting dozens of official portraits for the grand ducal family (under the reigns of Cosimo II, Ferdinand II and Cosimo III) and members of the Florentine court, which did not prevent him from travelling in the meantime and staying in Pisa, Milan, Parma, Modena, Ferrara and Vienna (1622). Among his numerous portraits, most of which remained in Italy (Florence, Lucca, Parma), we can mention the incomparable series of Florence (Pitti), the portrait of Galileo (Uffizi), the 2 versions of that of Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany (Brussels, M. R. B. A.; Rome, G. N., Gal. Corsini), that of Vittoria della Rovere (Rome, id.). Sustermans' style initially derived from the court portrait type of Pourbus and the Flemish, but the artist was enriched during his long career with inflections borrowed from the Florentine milieu (Empoli, Giovanni da San Giovanni, Volterrano Rubens, who was a friend of the painter, Van Dyck and Velázquez, whose works Sustermans was able to see in Rome, finally coloured the style of his maturity, after 1650, completing the effort to give his style ease and vigour. His great success and the studio he had to maintain would attract many followers and replicas. A collection can be seen in a series of Portraits of anonymous ladies, donated by Fouques to the Douai museum. He produced a considerable body of work spanning more than sixty years in which he depicted portraits, but also subjects of historical or religious inspiration. All of Florentine society, princes, servants, ecclesiastics, soldiers, scholars, members of the greatest Italian families: Barberini, Colonna, Corsini, d'Este, Farnese, Pamphili. None of his works being signed, they are either attributed, or from his workshop.