Standing Woman in Costume, and Separate Study for Her Headdress

Chief architect and engineer to the Medici court at the time of Francesco I de’ Medici (Grand Duke from 1574 to 1587), Buontalenti also held the post of festival designer from 1570 to 1608. He is known to have designed the costumes for the intermezzi, or interludes, of the commedia La Pellegrina, performed on 2 May 1589 in the Teatro Mediceo in the Uffizi. The theatrical performance was part of the month-long celebration on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco’s younger brother, later Grand Duke Ferdinand I de’ Medici, to Christina of Lorraine. The philosophical concept for the comedy and its intermezzi—the latter based on fantastic, mythological and cosmological themes, in which music, dance and scenic effects were combined—was devised by the aristocratic philosopher Giovanni de’ Bardi. Forty-five female costumes were used in the first intermezzo alone.

It seems quite likely that the present drawing is a costume design for one such intermezzo. The drawing can be compared to several costume designs for intermezzi by Buontalenti at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence (Inv. Palat. CB3.53). A drawing at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, contains two similar elaborate costume designs for Two Female Dancers (E. 614-1936).