Eleonora di Toledo with her son Francesco

Eleonora of Toledo arrived in Florence in 1539 from Naples, where her father governed for the King of Spain, bringing Spanish court manners and Spanish credit with her. Cosimo de' Medici, duke of Florence, made use of both, and she had money of her own, enough to buy the Pitti palace across the Arno around this time. Bronzino was the court painter, and the job of a picture like this was to fix the image of the family. Crimson was a colour the court kept for itself. The boy beside her, dressed as a small adult, is Francesco, the heir, eight years old in 1549. Francesco went on to build the Medici residence on the Arno in Pisa where the portrait hangs today.