Valore Casini

Valore Casini worked in Florence in the first half of the 17th century, and rarely alone. He and his older brother Domenico ran a portrait studio together, and they divided the labour on a single canvas: Valore painted the faces, the hands and the outline of the body, while Domenico filled in the rich clothing, the embroidery and the lace. Between them the brothers portrayed the Medici, the ruling family of Florence, and much of the local nobility. One surviving picture shows the young Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici. Another, from around 1623, shows the actor Francesco Andreini, a star of the traveling comedy troupes of the day. Both brothers had trained under Domenico Passignano, a leading Florentine painter, and both died in 1660.