Portrait of a Woman

Seated in an elaborately decorated folding chair, this young woman is an image of self-possession and demure elegance (note her sidelong glance and the way she holds the linen handkerchief and the gold waist chain). The architectural background appears in many Florentine portraits of the period, complicating the attribution. It has recently been suggested that the picture was painted by the young Francesco Zucchi, who was employed in the decoration of the studiolo (private study) of Francesco de’ Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. An assistant of Vasari, Zucchi later had a Roman career working for Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici.