Provenance

Cast 1996 by conservators from the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence;[1] gift 1996 to NGA.[2]
[1] The cast was made from a stucco death mask of Lorenzo de' Medici, which may date from 1492. That mask is owned by the Società Colombaria, Florence, and is currently (1998) on deposit at the Museo degli Argenti in Palazzo Pitti, Florence. The plaster cast was made for the NGA, and donated for use in studying particularly the NGA's bust of Lorenzo (1943.9.92), in conjunction with a curatorial colloquy held July 1996 on the NGA's Medici busts. A thorough study of the death mask is in the 1993 brochure published by the Soprintendenza per i beni artistici e storici per le province di Firenze e Pistoia, titled La Maschera di Lorenzo il Magnifico: Vicende e iconografia, with text by Maria Sframeli, and The Renaissance Portrait, from Donatello to Bellini, Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011, no. 56 (copies in NGA curatorial files).
[2] The gift to the Special Collection was reported to the Board of Trustees in 1998.

Associated Names

Wikidata ID

Q63571262