Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune

This portrait depicts Andrea Doria, a maverick naval war hero during the mid-16th, as the Roman god of water and the sea, Neptune. Doria gained immense fame and wealth when he played a key role in recapturing Genoa from the French and re-establishing the city as an imperial republic. He later led forces against the Ottoman Empire in the mid-16th century.

The Commission:
Bronzino was commissioned to paint this portrait for a gallery in Italy that was compiling portraits of great men. Andrea Doria, the Genoese naval admiral of the 16th century, surely fit the bill of a great man, given the standards of the time. So much so, that Bronzino chose to mythologize him as the Roman god.

In 1528 Doria earned his place in history when switched his alliance from the king of France to Charles V, France's enemy and ruler of Spain. In 1535, in a daring attack on the Ottoman empire, Doria and Charles V conquered Tunis. In his power over the sea, Doria was compared to the god Neptune, whom he is depicted as here.

This and similar 16th-century images and tributes of Neptune, such as Ammannati's Neptune Fountain in Florence (see Related Works below), were inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's powerful, erotic drawing of Neptune and his horses, executed in 1504 (see Related Works below).

This portrait represents only a small portion of Bronzino's oeuvre but it is one of his most interesting portraits in that he took a public figure of the time and turned him into a mythological character, and a naked one at that. Most of Bronzino's portraits are ultra-realistic and reserved, if not void of human expression. But this piece can surely not be categorized as realistic.

Bronzino made a famous military hero the Roman god of water and the sea to represent his battle prowess and many war victories. Standing before a ship's mast on which his name is carved in gold letters, Doria carries a trident in his strong right hand, while in his left he holds part of a sail that hangs down from the top right of the picture - gathering it into a kind of loincloth which barely covers his genitals.

Style:
Several aspects set this portrait apart from most of Bronzino's other works. The obvious example is that it is not meant to be a realistic depiction of the sitter, but rather an allegorical interpretation. However, even the style of painting is different in this work. Whereas Bronzino's courtly portraits appear almost shimmery and bursting with bright colors and a slick surface from meticulous detail work, this portrait is dark with dull colors. It carries more weight than many of the artist's paintings.

Bronzino makes use of a sharp contrast between light and dark to bring focus to Doria. His left shoulder is cast in light, the brightest part of the portrait, while the background is painted with dark, almost black, colors.

Below the surface:
Vitality and aggressive, war-like behavior, springing from instinctual, libidinous drives, are shown here as the only route to power. Nudity was not unusual for a mythological subject, but the fact that Doria wished to portray his body in this way shows that he was not interested in displaying the external trappings of a power based on dynastic tradition, but in demonstrating a power which derived its natural legitimacy from a new ethics of achievement, and its supremacy from reserves of determination and physical strength which were the exclusive domain of the individual.

Leonardo da Vinci, Neptune, 1504

Baccio Bandinelli, Andrea Doria as Neptune, 1529

Bartolomeo Ammannati, The Fountain of Neptune, 1565

Bronzino gained notoriety for his portraiture style that meshed a detached realism depicting cold and often arrogant expressions of his noblemen sitters with bold colors such as ice blue and raspberry red. Andrea Doria as Neptune is even more peculiar than Bronzino's other portraits due to the fact that the artist portrays a public personality as a nude, mythological figure.

Bronzino's painting technique is extremely controlled and meticulous. His brushstrokes appear non-existent, which gives his work an extremely realistic, almost life-like appearance. He took special care when painting the elaborate garments worn by the Medici family in his portraits and often, the grand clothing and patterns would appear like characters unto themselves, dominating the portrait. Bronzino's attention to detail was of the highest standard.

Bronzino had broad influence over court portraiture for an entire century following his death in 1572. The aloof, detached style he used to capture the noble class of Florence, in its decadent and arrogant pride spread throughout Europe reaching courts as far as Elizabethan England. Bronzino's portraits are his primary genius and legacy to the art world and several artists were particularly inspired by his unique style.

The Mannerist movement developed around 1520 in either Florence or Rome and replaced the High Renaissance era. It lasted until around 1580 with the emergence of the Baroque style. Early Mannerist painters include Andrea del Sarto, Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorento and such artists are known for their elongated forms and theatrical lighting.

Mannerism combines various styles and is heavily influenced by the restrained naturalism related to painters such Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

The mannerist portraiture of Angelo Bronzino was born in Florence - a city believed by many Florentine exiles to be built on corruption after the fall of the last republic in 1530 and the development of dynastic rule by the Medici. Yet, this did not stop the young Bronzino and his works soon caught the eye of the ruling class and in his later career, Bronzino became court painter to the Medici family.

Mannerist portraits by Agnolo Bronzino are distinguished by a still sophistication and superb attention to detail. Bronzino focused heavily on the clothing and materials featured in his works and this was often said to create a gulf between the subject and viewer.

To read more about Bronzino and his artworks please refer to the recommended reading list below.

• Brock, Maurice. Bronzino. Flammarion, 2002
• Cecchi, Alessandro. Bronzino (The library of great masters). Constable, 1997
• Cox-Rearick, Janet. Bronzino's Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio. University of California Press, 1993
• Falciani, Carlo & Natali, Antonio. Bronzino: Painter and Poet at the Court of the Medici. Mandragora, 2010
• Levey, Michael. Bronzino. Purnell, 1967
• McComb, Arthur Kilgore. Agnolo Bronzino: His Life and Works. Harvard University Press, 1928
• Pilliod, Elizabeth. Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori: A Genealogy of Florentine Art. Yale University Press, 2001
• Strehlke, Carl Brandon. Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004