Portraiture, gender and power in sixteenth-century art: creating and promoting the public image of early modern women

Abstract

"This exciting and wide-ranging volume examines the construction and dissemination of the image of female power during the Renaissance. Chapters examine the creation, promotion, and display of the image of women in power, and how the artistic and cultural patronage they developed helped them craft a self-image that greatly contributed to strengthening their power, consolidating their political legitimacy, and promoting their authority. Contributors cover diverse models of sixteenth-century female power: from ruling queens, regents, and governors, to consorts of sovereigns and noblewomen outside the court. The women selected were key political figures and patrons of art in England, France, Castile, the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire, and Italian city states. The volume engages with crucial and controversial debates regarding the nature and use of portraiture as well as the changing patterns of how portraits were displayed, building a picture of the principal iconographic solutions and representational strategies that artists used. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, gender studies, women's studies, and Renaissance studies."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Portrayals of Catherine de'Medici at the Granducal Medici court / Sheila ffolliott -- The failure to construct a visual image of gendered power : Anthonis Mor's Portrait of Mary I, Queen of England, in the Prado / Joanna Woods-Marsden -- Maria de Mendoza, portraits and the negotiation of memory : the display of her painting collection in the Cobos-Mendoza palace in Valladolid / Sergio Ramiro Ramírez.