Porträt der Maria Salviati

Maria Salviati passed her widowhood in dark, almost nun-like dress, mourning her husband, the famous mercenary captain Giovanni delle Bande Nere, who was killed in battle in 1526. Pontormo painted her around 1543, the year she died, and some scholars think the portrait was finished just after her death, an image of a woman already half a memory. By then her son Cosimo had become duke of Florence, so this quiet, austere face was the face of the mother of the ruling Medici. Vasari, who chronicled the artists of the age, took note of the picture. Pontormo gives her no jewels and almost no color, only the pale, still features set against a plain ground.