Beschreibung:

a Pisan merchant, writing to Ottaviano de’ Medici, about a Baroque painter Tiberio Titi (1573-1627) and his painting, manuscript letter in Italian on paper, with red wax seal [Pisa, dated 20 April 1611] Bifolium, with approximately 28 lines in a scrolling Italian Baroque hand, 2 and a half pages of writing, address and wax seal (beneath a paper cover) on verso of last leaf, evidently written by a scribe and with Poggibonsi’s scrawling signature in different ink at foot, small amount of discolouration and some folds, but overall in excellent condition, each leaf 287 by 210mm. Records of the commission and production of art have their own fascination, and this letter discusses in detail a portrait with a complex history. Poggobonsi had commissioned it from Tiberio Titi, an artist who otherwise worked for the Medici family (see I.M. Paulussen, Tiberio Titi, rittrattista dei Medici, 1980). He praises the artist’s skill and efficient speed, and describes the actual sitting, noting the setting up of the brushes and equipment and the fact that the artist spent about an hour pressing the subject’s face and turning their head to different angles. The painting was begun, but then set aside and allegedly abandoned as the artist spent several months in bed due to an illness. Poggobonsi then had it completed by another painter, and Titi became upset, leading to the situation in which Poggiobonsi now found himself in, necessitating his appeal to Ottaviano de’ Medici. Tiberio Titi was originally from Florence, and was a son and pupil of the late-Mannerist painter, Santi di Tito. He worked mostly as a portrait painter, and chiefly for the Medici family, notably Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, whose Venetian collections passed to the Uffizi. He is remembered as having died early from pleuritic fever (Gould, Biographical Dictionary, 1837, II: 545-6), and the serious illness alluded to here may have been its first appearance.