File:Cosimo III de' Medici after Jan Frans van Douven.png

«The painting depicts Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici, half-length, wearing armor, a dark red cloak, and a lace collar. There is no information about this portrait of Cosimo III in the oldest inventories of Poggio Imperiale. However, it is certain that the painting was in the villa before 1836 because it was listed in the inventory of that year, which is now lost, marked with number 2352 (which appears on the back). In the subsequent inventory of 1860-61, this portrait, marked with number 1334 (which appears on the back), was located in the villa in room number 160. The presence on the back of the Medici-Lorraine wax seal, which is unusual for the Imperiale, and some inventory numbers in colors that do not correspond to the paints used for the villa (blue, green, red), guarantee a different ancient placement of the painting. The portrait was identified by K. Langedijk in his iconographic repertoire on the Medici, with the exact attribution to the daughter of the renowned portraitist J. F. van Douven, as indicated by an inscription on the back of the painting. According to the inscription, the portrait would derive from an original, now unknown, by the painter. Douven executed numerous portraits of the Medici, having been the official portraitist of the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, son-in-law of Grand Duke Cosimo III. Many of these portraits, brought to Florence from Düsseldorf by the Electress Palatine, are now preserved at Poggio Imperiale, but none of them appears to be the prototype from which the examined portrait derives.» [1]