Portrait of Bia de' Medici

The Portrait of Bia de' Medici is an oil tempera on wood painted by Agnolo Bronzino, dating from around 1542

It was long displayed in the Tribune at the heart of the museum, but since 2012 it has been moved to the Uffizi's 'rose sale' in Nuovi. It has also been argued that a second portrait, by Pontormo, shows Bia de' Medici, but this identification is disputed.

After her death, many art historians believe that her father commissioned a posthumous painting of her by Agnolo Bronzino, which art historians consider one of his greatest works. The work measures 63 cm by 48 cm and was painted in tempera on wood. In the famous painting, which is on display at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Bia wears a medallion with her father's profile, emphasizing her bond with her father.

Bronzino shows the boy half-length and sitting on a chair, remembering the pose at a bit earlier (citation needed, actually later) Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi: a rigid official pose offset by some hints of hand movement, such as if the character was about getting up, along with an intense but emotionless gaze directly at the viewer. The face is illuminated and highlighted by the blue background, while the cold light and the absence of a strong chiaroscuro effect accentuates the softness of the subject's complexion and idealizes his features. His complexion is pale white because Bronzino painted the portrait using his death mask as a model.

Bia has hair parted in the middle of her forehead and a strand that falls, with two neatly tied braids framing her face. She wears pearl earrings, a gold chain with a pendant or medallion with her father's profile, emphasizing her bond with her father. She also wears a sumptuous dress, made of blue satin with puffy sleeves, produced in the silk factories Cosimo was setting up in Florence at the time. With his right hand he is playing with the end or tassel of a gold chain or belt around his waist.

It was not an official state portrait, but it would have hung in the family's private rooms as a reminder of the dead child and an inspiration and guide on the path to salvation. As art historian Gabrielle Langdon argues, Bronzino painted the girl with a halo effect, in "satin and white light-emitting pearls" as a metaphor for her name "Bianca", meaning "white" and her childlike innocence. "Like (Petrarch's) 'Laura,' the posthumous Bia is a fascinating emanation from heaven, bestowing cleansing grace on the viewer," Langdon wrote in the 2004 collection The Cultural World of Eleanora Di Toledo