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Violante Beatrice Siries
Self-portrait in Uffizi Gallery, c.1735
Born1710 (1710)
Florence, Italy
Died1783 (aged 72–73)
Florence, Italy
NationalityItalian
Known forPainting
SpouseGiuseppe Cerroti

Violante Beatrice Siries (Florence, 26 January 1710 – Florence, 20 April 1783) was an Italian late-Baroque painter known for her portraiture and skill in the medium of pastel. Her career began in the late Medici court and spanned the 30-year Lorraine regency in Tuscany. She painted numerous works for Tuscan noble families, ecclesiastics, and foreign visitors to Florence.

Early Life and Education[edit]

Born in Florence to French metal engraver Louis Siriès and his Florentine wife Margherita Mugnai, Siriès was named for the Grand Princess of Tuscany Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. Louis’s employment in the court of Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici provided early opportunities for his daughter’s artistic education. Her first teachers were sculptor Filippo della Valle and court portraitist Giovanna Fratellini. When Louis was appointed royal goldsmith to King Louis XV of France in 1726, the family—including a younger son Cosimo, born in 1719—moved to Paris.[1] There Violante pursued the study of oil painting under the guidance of several renowned artists, including Hyacinthe Rigaud and François Boucher.[2]

Early Career[edit]

Violante Siriès' self-portrait commissioned by Gian Gastone de' Medici, 1734-35, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

The family left France in 1732, when Louis secured a position as a coin engraver at the court of Gian Gastone de’ Medici in Florence. Siriès completed her education with religious painter Francesco Conti and, shortly after, was granted membership to Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno.[3] Her Academy membership allowed her to participate in the institution’s public art shows—one in 1737 and another in 1767.[4] Siriès enjoyed the support of the Academy’s director Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri,[4] who wrote Vite di Pittori, an anthology of contemporary artists’ biographies—including Violante’s—that exists in manuscript form in the National Central Library of Florence.[1]

In 1734, Siriès travelled with her father to Rome, where they stayed in the Medici-owned Palazzo Madama. There, she painted “the portraits of many prelates and other illustrious subjects.”[5] Upon her return to Florence, Gian Gastone commissioned her self-portrait to add to the Medici’s famed collection of artists’ self-portraits housed in the Uffizi. The existence of the most substantial account of her life must be owed to this painting’s presence in the Uffizi; her biography is included in the fourth volume of Museum Florentinum (the catalogue of the Medici collection) written in 1762 by Francesco Moücke when Siriès was 52 years old. Today, the Uffizi holds two additional paintings of Siriès’: one is a slightly later version of this self-portrait that entered the gallery in 1768; the other is a 1734 portrait of a female artist—previously thought to be a self-portrait—that belonged to the collection of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze before entering the Galleria Palatina in 1954, then finding a place in the Uffizi’s Vasari Corridor in 1973.[6] Her self-portraits have also changed positions in the gallery: the one commissioned by Gian Gastone is currently in the Uffizi’s storage, while the other is on display in the museum.

In 1737, Siriès married sculptor Giuseppe Cerroti, the son of renowned Florentine sculptor Francesco Cerroti, who worked on the Corsini Chapel in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. They had four children: Maria, Luigi, Giovan Battista, and Francesco.[1]

Commissions[edit]

Violante Siriès, Captain Edward Hughes, 1761, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Francesco Moücke's biography of Siriès indicates that her work ranged from large-scale oil portraits to miniatures and pastels, from religious works to still-lifes.[2] Some of these works have been identified, while others remain untraced. Moücke lists a number of Tuscan noble families among Siriès’ patrons. One of these is the Gondi family, whose Florentine palazzo still holds three of her works.[7] The Sansedoni family in Siena were also significant patrons.[8] In addition, she painted numerous foreigners who came to Florence, including British naval captain Sir Edward Hughes, whose portrait is in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.[9]

In 1735, Mr. Caters, Lord of Hemsrode commissioned to her a fourteen-figure group of Charles VI of Habsburg and his family. The current location of this large and impressive work is unknown.[5] Louis Siriès brought a smaller sketch for the work to Vienna when he went there to sell the empress Maria Theresa a collection of his cameos, which she took for her collection, along with several other paintings of Siriès’.[2]

Few of her pastels have been found, but one example sold through Sotheby’s London in 2015 is A Young Man Reading ‘Notizia del Disegno’, signed and dated 1745.[10][11]

Violante Siriès after Luca Giordano,The Virgin Presents the Christ Child to Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, 1767, church of Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, Florence

A significant example of her religious work is The Virgin Presents the Christ Child to Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, a large altarpiece created in 1767

Later life[edit]

After the death of her husband in 1767, Siriès continued to receive commissions. In 1770, she was commissioned to copy Francesco Trevisani’s Virgin Sewing in the Uffizi Gallery—the first woman to copy at the museum newly opened to the public.[12] Another notable later work, dated between 1770 and 1780, is a portrait held in storage of the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte, Bologna.[5] The subject is listed in a catalogue of the collection as Catherine II of Russia.[1]

Siriès also continued to teach—Anna Bacherini Piattoli and Maria Hadfield Cosway were two of her students. Cosway studied with her at age 8, around 1768.

Siriès died in 1783 at age 73 and was buried in the church of Santa Maria Novella in the Cerroti family tomb.[1]

Pietre Dure[edit]

Siriès' father Louis was named director of the Galleria dei lavori in pietre dure in 1748, becoming the first of four generations of Siriès men to hold the position.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e Masse, Poiret, "Violante Beatrice Siriès Cerroti: A Portraitist’s Path through Eighteenth-Century Tuscany" in La Signora Pittrice. The Lady Who Paints: Violante Siriès Cerroti (1709–1783), Florence: Pacini Editore, 2016, pp. 24-55
  2. ^ a b c Moücke, Francesco, "Serie di ritratti degli eccellenti pittori dipinti di propria mano che esistono nell’Imperial galleria di Firenze" in Museum Florentinum, vol. 4, 1762, pp. 285-289
  3. ^ "Academici: Siries Cerroti Violante Beatrice di Luigi". Accademia delle Arti del Disegno. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  4. ^ a b Borroni Salvadori, Fabia, "Le esposizioni d'arte a Firenze dal 1674 al 1767" in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XVIII, I. 1974, pp. 40-198
  5. ^ a b c Dabbs, Julia K., Life Stories of Women Artists, 1550-1800: An Anthology, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009, pp. 317-325
  6. ^ "N. Cat. 00641462 Siries Cerroti Violante". Polo Museale Fiorentino, Centro di Documentazione. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  7. ^ Meloni Trkulja, Silvia in Arte e Manifattura di corte a Firenze: dal tramonto dei Medici all’Impero (1732-1815), Annamaria Giusti ed., Florence: Sillabe, 2006, p. 156
  8. ^ Sottili, Fabio, “Il ‘Ritratto del conte di Bonneval’ di Violante Siries e le ‘turqueries’ dei Sansedoni” in Prospettiva, No. 147-148.2012 (2014), pp. 192-197
  9. ^ "Captain Sir Edward Hughes, circa 1720-94 - National Maritime Museum". Royal Museums Greenwich. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  10. ^ Jeffares, Neil. “SIRIÈS, Violante Beatrice, Sig.ra Giuseppe Cerroti.” Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, London, Online edition 2015. Page updated 16 August 2016. Retrieved from http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/SIRIeS.pdf
  11. ^ "The Winter Collection; 10 December 2015, Lot 179". Sotheby's. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  12. ^ Barker, Sheila, “Studied skills. Innate talents [Women artists at work in the Uffizi”, in Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence, Fortune, Jane ed. Florence: The Florentine Press, 2009, p. 111


Category:1709 births Category:1783 deaths Category:18th-century Italian painters Category:Painters from Florence Category:Italian women painters Category:18th-century women artists

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