Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional Search Ir al contenido principal

Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
Visit Collection Exhibitions Activities Education Search
  • Visit
  • Collection
  • Exhibitions
  • Activities
  • Education

Thyssen - Navegación superior (EN)

About Us Support Become Friend Shop Tickets
Español
©
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano)

Cosimo de Medici in Armour

ca. 1545
Oil on panel.
76.5 x 59 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
63
(
1975.50
)
Not on display
  • Level 2 Permanent Collection
  • Level 1 Permanent Collection
  • Level 0 Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
  • Level -1 Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
Level 1
Permanent Collection
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 Postpop rooms Rodin room
30 18th and 19th Centuries. Transatlantic Relations 31 19th Century. American Landscape and Environmental Awareness 32 19th Century. American Landscape and Urban Life 33 Recovering the ligth. Restoration of Waterloo Bridge, by André Derain 34 20th Century. Expressionist Landscapes 35 20th Century. Expressionist Portraits 36 20th Century. The Language of the Body 37 20th Century. Urban unrest 38 20th Century. Flowers 39 20th Century. Pioneers of abstraction 40 20th Century. Popular flavor 41 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition I 42 20th Century. The Cubist Tradition II 43 20th Century. Abstract Utopias 44 20th Century. Dada and Surrealism 45 20th Century. Interwar Realisms 46 20th Century. American Abstraction I 48 20th Century. Post-ward American Art 49 20th Century. Post-ward European Figurative Art 50 20th Century. Informalisms 51 20th Century. Homo Ludens 52 20th Century. Pop Art 53 Postpop rooms 54 Postpop rooms 55 Postpop rooms 56 Postpop rooms Rodin Exhibition room
Level 0
Carmen Thyssen Collection and Temporary exhibition rooms
A B C D E F G H I J Hall Temporary exhibition rooms Access to Permanent Collection Entrance Access to Carmen Thyssen Collection Paseo del Prado Garden
A 17th and 18th Centuries. Old Masters B 19th Century. North American Landscape C 19th Century. French Naturalist Landscape D 19th Century. Impressionism E 19th Century. Monet and North American Impressionism F 19th Century. Gauguin and Postimpressionism G 19th and 20th Centuries. Neo Impressionism and its Wake H 20th Century. Early Avant-gardes I 20th Century. Between the Wars Painting. Cubism, Abstraction and Surrealism J 20th Century. North American Painting and Others • HALL
Level -1
Temporary exhibition rooms, Conference room and EducaThyssen workshop
Temporary exhibition rooms Conference room EducaThyssen Workshop

Bronzino’s portraits are undoubtedly among his most important works. His most significant examples date from the 1540s onwards, but it was in the 1530s that he began to formulate their prototype. This involved a distant presentation of the sitter, a sense of immutability, and an elegant, stylised appearance. These concepts are already evident in portraits such as the Young Man with a Book of the early 1530s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Portrait of Ugolino Martelli of the end of that decade (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin). Bronzino created a gallery of images of the intellectual society of his day, painting musicians, poets and writers as well as members of the Florentine aristocracy.

In 1539 the artist entered the service of Duke Cosimo I de’Medici. Among works executed for his patron was a series of portraits of members of the Duke’s family. One of his first projects for the Duke was, however, the decoration of a chapel for the Duchess, Eleonora of Toledo, daughter of Pedro de Toledo, Viceroy of Naples. In addition to frescoes of Old Testament scenes he painted an altarpiece of The Lamentation over the dead Christ for the chapel’s altar (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon). This project was followed by another important one that involved the design of a series of cartoons for tapestries of Old Testament scenes together with allegorical and mythological ones. With regard to Bronzino’s activities as court portraitist, numerous examples have survived, both of the Duke and Duchess and their children and members of their court. The portrait of Eleonora with her Son Giovanni de’Medici of 1545 (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) is one of the most perfect and exquisite images created by the artist in the entire course of his career.

With regard to the portraits of Cosimo, Bronzino was commissioned to create the Duke’s official image which, to judge by the number of copies and replicas that have survived, was used as part of a propagandist strategy on the part of Cosimo.

The present panel in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which was in the Gonzaga collection at an early date, is a version of the painting now in the Uffizi. That work has been identified as the painting mentioned by Vasari, which was probably painted at the Medici villa of Poggio a Caiano in 1545. It was the prototype that was used for around 20 versions and copies, among which is the present panel, considered by Mina Gregori to be a replica, and by Simon to be a studio production. Cosimo is depicted half-length, dressed in armour with his body turned to one side and his brightly-lit head turned in the opposite direction. He places his hand on a helmet that rests on a surface not visible to the viewer. The background consists of a heavy green curtain located in the upper right corner, an element that is not to be seen in the version in the Uffizi which has a plain, dark background. The version in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, depicts Cosimo slightly more than half-length with a blue curtain and the helmet resting on a section of column with an inscription. Other versions differ from the present one in details such as the presence of the emblem of the Golden Fleece worn by the Duke or the laurel branch, one of the symbols of the Medici family.

Mar Borobia

16th Century16th Century - Italian paintingPaintingOilpanel
Listen
Download image Print page

Products and publications

De Palacio Villahermosa a Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Historia de un edificio

De Palacio Villahermosa a Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Historia de un edificio

28.00 € 15.50 €

Watch Swatch+Thyssen Mondrian The Red Shiny Line

Watch Swatch+Thyssen Mondrian The Red Shiny Line

80.01 €

Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Paperback Spanish language edition.

Max Beckmann, figuras del exílio. Exhibition catalogue. Paperback Spanish language edition.

9.50 €

Delaunay, Sonia

Delaunay, Sonia

17.00 €

Visit online shop

More from the collection

Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano)
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano)
Portrait of a young Man as Saint Sebastian
ca. 1533
Paris Bordone
Paris Bordone
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1543 - 1550
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
Portrait of Antonio Anselmi
ca. 1550
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
The Virgin and Child
ca. 1540
  • Private and/or didactic use
  • Commercial use
Private and/or didactic use
Cosimo de Medici in Armour. Cosme I de Médicis con armadura, c. 1545
Cosimo de Medici in Armour
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano)

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Terms of Use

The exploitation rights of the images correspond to the Fundación Coleccion Thyssen-Bornemisza, F.S.P. The Fundación authorizes the downloading of high-resolution images from its website for private use, use for educational and research purposes, and other non-commercial uses.

Use for educational and research purposes is understood as the non-commercial or advertising use of images in presentations, conferences, school or university work, in classes at regulated education institutions, as well as in academic publications, with a circulation of less than 1,000 copies, provided that it is non-profit.

Non-commercial use is understood as the use of the images in a context where no profit, monetary or commercial, is generated, directly or indirectly.

Any use other than those indicated above will require the prior written authorization of the Fundación Any request for educational and research use or for non-commercial use (including academic publications), should be directed by email to the Museum Photo Library through the email address archivo.fotografico@museothyssen.org. This department manages the worldwide distribution of the images of the works of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and the management of their reproduction rights for those uses.

The user agrees to use the image of the website solely and exclusively for the purposes described above and in accordance with the following terms of use:

Terms of use

  • If the image is used for reproduction, the work must be reproduced in its entirety. The image may not be manipulated, deformed, modified, or altered in any way. In particular, no superposition (of images or texts) on the reproduction is allowed.
  • The reproduction of a detail or part of the work may only be made with the prior written authorization of the Fundación. In this case, the credit line must include the following mention: “detail”.
  • Any total or partial reproduction of the images authorized by the Fundación must be accompanied by the following mention: Author's name. Title, Date © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
  • The user will send to the Museum Photo Library of the Fundación one (1) free copy of the edition, publication or reproduction to the following address: Archivo Fotográfico, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Paseo del Prado, 8 28014 Madrid, Spain.
Download image
Commercial use
Cosimo de Medici in Armour. Cosme I de Médicis con armadura, c. 1545
Cosimo de Medici in Armour
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano)

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Terms of Use

The Photographic Archive of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza offers sale and rental service of photographic material of all the works on its Permanent Collection.

To request images or permits for commercial use in academic or research publications, that is, catalogues of other institutions, monographs and other specialized publications, you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

To request images or permits for other commercial or advertising uses (general publications, merchandising, exhibitions, audio-visual works, web pages, etc.), you should contact the Museum's Commercial Archive by email at the e-mail @email.

The Photo Library and the Museum's Commercial Archive manage the worldwide distribution of images of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza works, as well as their reproduction rights. The applicable rates are calculated based on the nature and proposed use of the images, as well as the availability of the requested image.

Requests for scans or new photographs will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, an additional fee will apply. Re-photographing a work will require a minimum of six weeks to complete.

However, photographed works are protected by copyright. Therefore, regardless of the terms of use of the photographs set out below by the Foundation, it will be necessary to obtain a license from the author or copyright holder known to the Fundacion in order to reproduce or exploit the work.

Download image
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional

Navegación secundaria (EN)

  • #Thyssenmultimedia
  • Press
  • Corporate events
  • Tourism
  • Join our team
  • Newsletter
Instagram
Facebook
X
Youtube
TikTok
iVoox
LinkedIn

The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza would like to thanks for the collaboration of:

Fundación Mutua Madrileña Master Card Comunidad de Madrid
©2025 Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

Menú al pie (EN)

  • Legal terms and use of images
  • Public tenders
  • Transparency site
  • Accessibility and quality
  • Sustainability & 2030 Agenda
  • Contact
Ministry of Culture España es cultura | Spain is culture. The website promoting Spanish culture Paisaje de la Luz | Paseo del Prado y Buen Retiro. Paisaje de las Artes y las Ciencias
Certificación de Conformidad con el Esquema Nacional de Seguridad. Categoría Media. RD 311/2022