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{wandering} More museum finds, Florence, Italy, May 2018

ByLindley Ashline

  • Had I realized that Palazzo Pitti had an entire floor of jewelry, we’d have skipped some other things and spent more time there. It was the last area we discovered, so we didn’t get to cover it as thoroughly as I’d have liked, but what we saw was amazing. This is what Google Translate calls a Medici casket in steel and diamonds. Steel seemed weird until I saw it was made in 1970.
  • A “cup of oblivion” made in 1978 of gold and what looks like jasper.
  • A pocket watch and pencil holder in gold and silver, 1933.
  • YES PLEASE.
  • LOOK AT THIS PEARL CORSAGE.
  • Earrings in gold and enamel with…squirrels?
  • Parts for an umbrella, second half of the 1800s, in coral.
  • Is a jellyfish! And, uh, a nose ring? I got nothing.
  • A lovely pearl brooch.
  • A charm bracelet!
  • A pretty little pin. I can’t tell if that’s real turquoise or enamel.
  • You have to be there to really understand the brilliance of cases and cases full of diamonds. The camera absolutely did not do them justice.
  • Google Translate called these diamonds, but they must be rubies, right?
  • Google Translate called these diamonds, but they must be rubies, right?
  • Beautiful dainty pocket watches.
  • Probably the world’s most expensive tiny scissors.
  • Pocket watches? Big lockets? Mirror cases?
  • I’m having trouble finding any information about this delicate wheat tiara online, but it was stunning in person — diamond rainbows everywhere. French, 1810-20, I think.
  • *heart eyes*
  • Rubies, diamonds, pearls. You know, the basics.
  • A 1910 Cartier amethyst and diamond tiara. This one gets some shade on the internets because it features semi-precious stones, but I would wear it. Yes, please.
  • More diamonds. You can see a little bit of the brilliance of them here.
  • Oh, my goodness. Want.
  • Without the diamond sparkle, these look a bit dingy, but let me reassure you that in person they were stunning.
  • Looks like this Collier and Hancock piece from 1900-1910 is still in its original box.
  • Another one of my absolute favorites. I used a very shallow depth of field here so that you can see a little bit of the rainbow flash in the foreground.
  • The Cartier again. Happy sigh.
  • Primavera (Spring), c. 1480s, Botticelli. Uffizi Gallery. The first day we failed to get anywhere near this painting due to the crowds, so we came back another day right at opening and made a beeline for this room. The painting is everything it should be: gorgeous and mysterious. I could have stood with this one for an hour.
  • Portia, c. 1495, Fra’Bartolomeo. Uffizi Gallery. Working title: “Look, There’s a Frame Around Me. Weird.”
  • Madonna of the Milk, 1518, Bugiardini. Uffizi Gallery. This one was bought by the Uffizi in the 1700s under the impression it was a da Vinci, a mistake corrected about 100 years later.
  • I didn’t get an ID on this one, but it’s really, really cool. Uffizi Gallery.
  • I didn’t get an ID on this one, but that is one masterful toddler. Uffizi Gallery.
  • Cupid with a Bow. Roman art, mid-2nd century AD. Uffizi Gallery. How amazing is it that something that delicate has survived this long?
  • Aphrodite of Deidalsas. Roman art, 1st century AD. Uffizi Gallery. How amazing is it that something that delicate has survived this long?
  • Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi, 1541, Bronzino. Uffizi Gallery. I find these portraits of noblewomen fascinating. How much Renaissance photoshopping got done? How much do the paintings resemble the people? How incredibly bored were they, sitting for the painter?
  • Portrait of Maria de’ Medici, 1551, Bronzino. Uffizi Gallery. This poor girl died of malaria a few years after the portrait was painted.
  • Portrait of Bia de’ Medici, c. 1542, Bronzino. Uffizi Gallery. This poor girl died in the year the portrait was completed, and the work may have been finished from her funeral mask.
  • Portrait of a Girl with a Book, 1545, Bronzino. This might be Giulia de’ Medici, the adopted sister of the two previous girls.
  • Flora, 1520, Vecellio. Uffizi Gallery. This is basically what I look like in my head. All the time.
  • Adoration of the Magi, 1482, da Vinci. Uffizi Gallery. This is of course da Vinci’s famous unfinished work, and it’s extremely important because it gives such insight into da Vinci’s creative process.
  • Venus, Two Satyrs and a Cupid, 1587, Carracci. Uffizi Gallery. Working title: “I Wish I’d Skipped This Party, Ugh”
  • A hallway in the Uffizi, miraculously clear of people. This whole level was painted a startling fuchsia, and you’d think it would detract from the paintings, but it sort of set them off visually instead.
  • Baccus, c. 1597, Caravaggio. Uffizi Gallery. He does rather look like he’d like you to be drunk.
  • Portrait of Marguerite of Lorraine, Duchess of Orleans (?), 1634, van Dyck. I love this one — she looks slightly and sweetly embarrassed to be painted, and like she’d be a hoot over coffee.
  • Portrait of Galileo Galilei, 1635, Suttermans. Uffizi Gallery. Working title: “What if Famous Dudes Were Actually Dwarves?”
  • Cosimo II de’ Medici with His Wife Maria Magdalena of Austria and His Son Ferdinando II, c. 1640, Suttermans. I only captured his wife because by this time I was really tired of famous dead dudes.

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