Prague Castle Picture Gallery - Collection

Wax portrait medals of Claudia Medici and Federico Ubaldo della Rovere

Colour wax medals are a distinctive form of portraiture which developed at the height of the Renaissance and enjoyed great popularity in the courts of ruling families up to the first thirty years of the seventeenth century. A rare preserved item is the pair of wax portraits of a hitherto unidentified young married couple from a private Czech collection. Comparisons with other contemporary portraits have made it possible to identify the husband and wife as Claudia Medici (1604–1623) and her first husband, the Duke of Urbino Federico Ubaldo della Rovere (1605–1623). The brevity of their marriage (1621–1623) makes it possible to give a precise date to both medals and to assign their provenance. It is most likely that the work is an example of Italian “ceroplastica” (wax sculpture), evidently emanating directly from Florence, where portraiture had a long tradition.

Image No. 1 Wax portrait medallion - Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, Duke Urbinská; colored waxes, glass, river pearls, gold-plated copper wire, Ø 8 cm, around 1621, private collection, photo © Jan Frühauf, photo © Jan Frühauf

Image No. 2 Backside of wax portrait of Federico Ubaldo – inner adjustment using fragments of newspaper (?Scotland 1903?), photo © Jan Frühauf

Image No. 3 Wax portrait of Claudia Medici - coloured wax, glass, freshwater pearls, copper gilt wire, Ø 8 cm, after restoration, photo © Jan Frühauf

Image No. 4 Backside of wax portrait of Federico Ubaldo – a card containing information on the previous owners: these included the English businessman and collector Henry Willet (1823–1903), from whom the medals passed to his friend, the art historian and collector Percy Bate from Glasgow, photo © Jan Frühauf

Image No. 6 Backside of wax portrait of Claudia Medici – an outer covering paper labeled by previously suggested atribution (Guillaume Dupré) and acquisition (Carlo Orsi, Milan), photo © Jan Frühauf