The Art History Mystery Challenge No. 20 Giorgio Vasari - Portrait of Lorenzo de Medici

The Art History Mystery Challenge

Welcome to our totally disorganized art museum! The challenge is to help us identify all the masterworks in our virtual museum. We'll post a piece of the painting and one clue to get you started. Can you name the artist and the title of the painting?

Pieces of the painting and clues to the artist's identity will be added every 24 hours until we have a winner, then the next painting in our collection will be posted. Feel free to use any resources at your disposal to help in your search. Challenge winners will receive a shiny award badge that we will add below their profile image. You will retain this award until someone else wins the award.

The AHM Challenge is open to all forum members, not just ws oil painters, so join in and have some fun with us!

If you would like to host a AHM Challenge painting; please send a PM to the Challenge Moderator Callie to receive instructions and notice when to post your painting. Be prepared to check in frequently while hosting a challenge!



Clue = Nationality - Italian

Just a heads up to all those that participate in or follow the AHM challenges. From this time forward a new challenge will only be posted once a week... every Monday. Same format so new clues will be posted daily until it's solved then the thread will remain open so we can discuss the artist or add additional info on the artist and/or painting until the new challenge is posted the following Monday.

Clue = born in 1511

What a bizarre picture (what we can see so far)

Portrait of Lorenzo de Medici by Giorgio Vasari

Here's an interesting bit about Vasari, he not only painted, but kept tabs on other artists/methods:

As the first Italian art historian, he initiated the genre of an encyclopedia of artistic biographies that continues today. Vasari coined the term "Renaissance" (rinascita) in print, though an awareness of the ongoing "rebirth" in the arts had been in the air from the time of Alberti. Vasari's Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) — dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici — was first published in 1550. It included a valuable treatise on the technical methods employed in the arts. It was partly rewritten and enlarged in 1568, with the addition of woodcut portraits of artists (some conjectural).

Read all about him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Vasari

Callie, It does look very bizarre. Some symbolism going on here I think. Congrats on retaining the reward! Thank you for providing some very interesting info on the artists and the full painting! I would love to see a copy of that book.

I don't believe I researched Vasari, but ran out of time before find the painting. Nice work. Judy