b Pontormo, nr Empoli, 26 May 1494; d Florence, 31 Dec 1556). Italian painter and draughtsman. He was the leading painter in mid-16th-century Florence and one of the most original and extraordinary of Mannerist artists. His eccentric personality, solitary and slow working habits and capricious attitude towards his patrons are described by Vasari; his own diary, which covers the years 1554-6, further reveals a character with neurotic and secretive aspects. Pontormo enjoyed the protection of the Medici family throughout his career but, unlike Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari, did not become court painter. His subjective portrait style did not lend itself to the state portrait. He produced few mythological works and after 1540 devoted himself almost exclusively to religious subjects. His drawings, mainly figure studies in red and black chalk, are among the highest expressions of the great Florentine tradition of draughtsmanship; close to 400 survive, forming arguably the most important body of drawings by a Mannerist painter. His highly personal style was much influenced by Michelangelo  Related Paintings of Pontormo, Jacopo :. | Portrait of a Lady in Red | Hermaphrodite Figure | Visitation | Vertumnus and Pomona | Madonna and Child with St. Joseph and Saint John the Baptist |
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Michiel Coxie
Coxie also spelled Coxcie or Coxien, Latinised name Coxius (1499 - 3 March 1592) was a Flemish painter who studied under Bernard van Orley, who probably induced him to visit the Italian peninsula. Coxie was born in 1499 in Mechelen in what was then the Duchy of Brabant. At Rome in 1532 he painted the chapel of Cardinal Enckenvoirt in the church of Santa Maria dell'Anima; and Giorgio Vasari, who knew him, says with truth that he fairly acquired the manner of an Italian. But Coxie's principal occupation was designing for engravers; and the fable of Psyche in thirty-two sheets by Agostino Veneziano and the Master of the Die are favorable specimens of his skill. Returning to the Netherlands, Coxie greatly extended his practice in this branch of art. But his productions were till lately concealed under an interlaced monogram M.C.O.K.X.I.N. In 1539, Coxie returned to Mechelen, where he matriculated and painted the wings of an altarpiece for the chapel of the guild of St Luke. The centre of this altar-piece, by Jan Mabuse, represents Saint Luke the Evangelist, patron of painters, portraying the Virgin; the side pieces contain the Martyrdom of Saint Vitus and the Vision of St John the Evangelist in Patmos. At van Orley's death in 1541 Coxie succeeded to the office of court painter to the Regent Maria of Austria, for whom he decorated the castle of Binche. He was subsequently patronized by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who often coupled his works with those of Titian; by Philip II of Spain, who paid him royally for a copy of Jan van Eyck's Agnus Dei, and also commissioned two copies of Van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross from Coxie; and by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, who once protected him from the insults of Spanish soldiery at Mechelen. At that time, Coxie also designed tapestries for the Brussels manufacturers.
Thomas Butler
1806-86
BADALOCCHIO, Sisto
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1585-ca.1619 Italian painter and etcher. His formation as an artist took place within the Carracci circle. According to Malvasia, he may have attended the Carracci Academy in Bologna, before returning to Parma in 1600 as the pupil of Agostino Carracci when the latter entered the service of Ranuccio I Farnese, 4th Duke of Parma. After Agostino's death in 1602, Badalocchio and his fellow pupil Giovanni Lanfranco were sent by the Duke to Rome in order to complete their training in the studio of Annibale Carracci, who was then working in the Palazzo Farnese. Badalocchio remained with Annibale until the latter's death in 1609. He participated in most of the projects that occupied the studio assistants during those years, such as the frescoes on the walls of the Galleria in the Palazzo Farnese and those previously in the Herrera Chapel in S Maria di Monserrato, Rome (now detached and divided between Madrid, Prado, and Barcelona, Mus. A. Catalunya), although his precise share in them is still debated. His first signed works are etchings, one (1606) after the antique sculpture of the Laokoon (Rome, Vatican, Mus. Pio-Clementino) and 23 (1607, part of a series of 54 executed in collaboration with Lanfranco) after Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican Logge; they reveal the romanizing character of his training. Yet his independent paintings of this early period reveal the influence of Lanfranco, which was to last throughout his career; the lively play of light and shade suggests his allegiance to Emilian art.