Crafting the Medici places portraits of the Medici family in the context of the breadth of Florentine craftsmanship, in media ranging from painting to printmaking, gold- and silversmithing, leatherwork, and textile manufacture all in the service of crafting a public image for the Medici rulers. From the time of the first Grand Duke, Cosimo I—who ruled Florence beginning in 1537—until the last Medici died in 1737, the Medici were absolute rulers of one of the most luxurious and powerful courts in Italy. Made in the years following the establishment of Medici rule in 1537, the extremely formal lineage portraits (some of them of infants and young children) were designed to show dynastic succession and provided painters with "authorized" models from which to make any number of copies whenever needed.

Curated by Catherine Caneva, Jo-Ann Conklin, Evelyn Lincoln, and Catherine W. Zerner