Isabel of Portugal by Leone Leoni
SPAIN, Reino de España. Isabel de Portugal. Riena consorte, 1526-1539. AR Medal (75mm, 124.3 g, 5h). By Leone Leoni. A contemporary cast, circa 1549. DIVA • ISABELLA • AVGVSTA • CAROLI • V • VX, bust of Isabel facing slightly left / HAS • HABET • ET • SVPERAT (
she has these and surpasses them), the three Graces embracing each other, the central figure seen from behind and facing right, those on ends facing left and right, respectively, and holding flowers;
cupides to either side. Attwood 28; Armand I 25; Middeldorf & Stiebral,
Renaissance Medals LVI (this piece). EF, toned. Cast and chased as made.
Ex Stack Collection (Morton & Eden, with Sotheby’s, 9 December 2009), lot 131; ‘Property of a Collector’ (Sotheby’s, 12 June 1974), lot 201.
Leone Leoni (circa 1509-1590) was a prominent sculptor and engraver of the Italian Renaissance. Starting his career as a goldsmith, Leoni quickly rose to prominence as an engraver of coins and medals. In the late 1530s, he created a number of medal dies for the Papal mint in Rome, but his violent temper led to altercations with other of the Pope’s resident artists, including the engraver Cellini and the jeweler Pellegrino di Leuti. When the later accused him of assault in March 1540, Leoni confessed, and was sentenced to have his right hand cut off, which the Pope commuted to service in galleys.
Leoni was freed through the patronage of Andrea Doria, prince of Genoa, and engraved several medals for him before moving on to Milan, where he oversaw a redesign of the Milanese coinage of Charles V. Following this, he served for a time in the Piacenza mint, before chance and good connections gained him an audience with Charles himself. In late 1547, Leoni proposed to the governor of Milan, Ferrante Gonzaga, to produce an equestrian statue of Charles, an idea that apparently intrigued the emperor, as he was asked to accompany the royal entourage to Brussels. Here, the artist finally gained an audience with Charles, where he presented examples of his medallic work, earning approval of the monarch and commissions to produce further medals – the current type included.
As Isabel had died in 1539, the portrait on this medal could not have been made from a subject, but was rather derived from a painting by Titian, now lost but known from a copy by Rubens. Leoni wrote of the design, “If I have made it from Titian, it is because His Majesty commanded it thus.” (Attwood p. 88) It would appear that Charles was pleased with this work, as he later had Leoni create a sardonyx cameo bearing the same portrait.
