Allegorical Portrait of a Young Man in the Guise of Mercury Slaying Argus Alessandro Allori 1575 - 1580

Allegorical Portrait of a Young Man in the Guise of Mercury Slaying Argus
Alessandro Allori 1575 - 1580
From the collection of
Harvard Art Museums
Details
Title: Allegorical Portrait of a Young Man in the Guise of Mercury Slaying Argus
Date: 1575 - 1580
Physical Dimensions: w88.9 x h144.8 x d7.6 cm
Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Purchase through the generosity of Jessie Lie Farber, The Richard Norton Fund, and The Henry George Berg Bequest Fund, Gift in Gratitude to John Coolidge
Creation Place: Florence/Tuscany/Italy/Europe
Artist: Alessandro Allori
Type: Paintings
External Link: Harvard Art Museums http://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/174915
Medium: Oil on panel

Harvard Art Museums
Cambridge, United States

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Alessandro Allori
May 3, 1535 - Sep 22, 1607

Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori was an Italian portrait painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.
In 1540, after the death of his father, he was brought up and trained in art by a close friend, often referred to as his 'uncle', the mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, whose name he sometimes assumed in his pictures. In some ways, Allori is the last of the line of prominent Florentine painters, of generally undiluted Tuscan artistic heritage: Andrea del Sarto worked with Fra Bartolomeo, Pontormo briefly worked under Andrea, and trained Bronzino, who trained Allori. Subsequent generations in the city would be strongly influenced by the tide of Baroque styles pre-eminent in other parts of Italy.
Freedberg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates "the ideal of Maniera by which art are generated out of pre-existing art." The polish of figures has an unnatural marble-like form as if he aimed for cold statuary.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/paintings/allegorical-portrait-of-a-young-man-in-the-guise-of-mercury-slaying-argus-alessandro-allori-1575-1580/