Justus Sustermans

(1597 - 1681)

Attributed to

Thanks to the inscription on the bottom "Alessandra Bocchineri Francesco Rasio Nvpta" the depicted is identified as Alessandra Bocchineri.
Daughter of the Florentine poet Carlo Bocchineri and wife of the Florentine musician Francesco Rasi, musician of both the Medici court and that of Gonzaga.
According to the long biography dedicated to Rasi by Warren Kirkendale, the wedding was celebrated on 4 September 1621 in Pistoia in the house of the bride's mother Polissena Gatteschi and the spouses left immediately after the wedding for Mantua.
Since in our portrait Alessandra wears the widow's dress, the portrait can be dated after the death of Francesco Rasi, who died in Mantua on 30 November 1621.
According to Kirkendale, the young widow found refuge with the Duchess of Mantua Caterina di Ferdinando de' Medici and, later in Vienna, with Empress Eleonora Gonzaga, where she married again to an Italian diplomat named Francesco Buonamici in 1623, a date which constitutes a useful ante quem term for dating this widow's portrait.

Date the acquaintance between Caterina de' Medici and Justus Sustermans, who in 1621 was appointed court painter and the different affinities with works by the Master of Antwerp it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the portrait was painted in Mantua by Sustermans between December 1621 and 1623 before of the departure in Vienna.

Within a golden frame.