The Sacrifice of Isaac

Andrea del Sarto began this in 1527, meaning it for the king of France. His agent, an art dealer named Giovanni Battista della Palla, was buying up Florentine paintings for Francis I. Then the city's politics turned. Della Palla was arrested when the Florentine republic fell, and del Sarto caught the plague that swept through Florence during the siege, dying in 1530. The panel never reached France. A Spanish commander, Alfonso d'Avalos, later got hold of it and had his own monogram cut into the rock at the lower left, where you can still find it. Del Sarto painted this subject more than once, and the Dresden picture is the largest of the versions he made.