Painting on Copper for the Medici: Between Art, Nature, and Alchemy

• In Event: Medici Materials: From Substance to Artefact II

Abstract

If Vasari declares in the life of Sebastiano del Piombo that he was the first painter to experience painting on different materials, one of them being copper, it seems that the first surviving examples of this technique belong to the Medici artistic circle long after, in the second half of the sixteenth century. The use of copper as a support for painting is still unquestioned; this technique is associated with northern painters, but it seems that the first experiences appear in Italy, in the Medici context. In this opinion, we should try to understand the reason of this experiments and propose to link them with the interest of duke Cosimo and his sons, Francesco and Ferdinando de Medici, with alchemy and the belief in the power of these particular materials.

Author

• Elinor Myara Kelif, Université Paris-Sorbonne