Pope Clement VII

Following the model Raphael had established for papal portraits two decades earlier, Sebastiano del Piombo shows Pope Clement VII — Giulio de’ Medici, who reigned from 1523 to 1534 — seated three-quarter length in an armchair and turned diagonally to the picture plane. In July 1531 the artist told Michelangelo that the pope had come to his studio to see a finished portrait on canvas and, satisfied with it, commissioned this second version on slate for his own collection. Painting on stone had begun in Rome a generation before, and Sebastiano favoured the support because he believed pictures made on it would last longer than those on canvas or wood; his friend Vasari agreed, declaring in the *Lives* that pictures painted on slate outlast any other material. The grave, watchful bearing of the sitter is that of a Medici who had known both the sack of Rome and the siege of Florence. The panel, 105.4 × 87.6 cm, is held by the J. Paul Getty Museum.