English: Vermutliches Porträt von Maria de’ Medici (1575-1642), Ehefrau von Heinrich IV. (1553-1610)

"The identification of the sitter here as Maria de' Medici was first put forward when the painting was with Ehrich Galleries, New York, in 1920, and the identification was further confirmed by Wilhelm Suida when the painting reappeared on the market in 1944.

Maria de' Medici was born in 1573, the daughter of Grand Duke Francesco I de' Medici, and later became Queen of France when she married Henri IV in 1600. In 1594, the year in which this picture was painted, Maria would have been twenty-one years old. Most single-figure portraits of Maria post-date her wedding and show the sitter almost twenty years older, for example Frans Pourbus' portrait of 1611 in the Uffizi, Florence (K. Langedijk, The Portraits of the Medici, Florence 1981, pp. 1242-3, no. 10, reproduced fig. 86,10). A lost portrait of Maria de' Medici by Pulzone almost certainly existed, for an inventory records a red chalk drawing of her by the artist, together with drawings of Ferdinando I and Christine of Lorraine, all of which were presumably associated with portraits in the Serie Aulica (Langedijk, op. cit., p. 1245, no. 12). The view that this portrait was probably painted by Pulzone for the Serie Aulica and that it represents Maria de' Medici was supported by Prof. Federico Zeri (written communication, 21 September 1995), but the identification of the sitter as Maria de' Medici has been rejected by Dr. Karla Langedijk." [1] [2]