Sheppy Dog Fund Lecture: Fabulous Florence: Grand Duchesses & Women Artists at the Medici Court

This lecture will trace the avenues for success of women patrons and artists at the Medici court in Florence in the 17th century. The Medici Grand Duchesses, in addition to the Grand Dukes, were avid collectors of art and supporters of culture. Drawing on two works in Flint’s collection, Justus Sustermans’ Maria Maddalena of Austria (Wife of Duke Cosimo II de Medici) with Her Son, the Future Ferdinand II and Elisabetta Sirani’s Cleopatra, this talk will trace the significant, and often untold, story of women’s patronage of and contributions to the arts in Florence.

An authority on Italian painting in the early modern period and an expert on early modern women artists and patrons, Eve Straussman-Pflanzer joined the National Gallery of Art in 2020 as curator and head of Italian and Spanish paintings. She was previously the head of the European art department and the Elizabeth and Allan Shelden Curator of European Paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) from 2016 to 2020, and has held posts at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum in Massachusetts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Straussman-Pflanzer received a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University and a BA from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.