O-273

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painting (portrait)

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Amerigo Vespucci

Painting - Amerigo Vespucci

Antoine Sébastien Falardeau painted this oil portrait in 1857, a decade after he left Quebec to live in Florence. It depicts Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine merchant and explorer whose name inspired the term “America.” Falardeau’s painting is certainly a copy of a 1568 work by Cristofano dell’Altissimo that hung in the Uffizi Gallery in 1587. Dell’Altissimo’s work also happens to be a copy of an original (artist unknown) belonging to 16th-century historian Paolo Giovio. Dell’Altissimo was commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, to reproduce a collection of portraits of illustrious figures, which Giovio kept at Lake Como. Falardeau’s Vespucci is faithful to the dell’Altissimo composition in every respect, including the markings on the map unfurling from its scroll.

Antoine Sébastien Falardeau

Antoine Sébastien Falardeau was born in 1822 near Cap-Santé, on the shore of the St. Lawrence River, in what was then called Lower Canada. Little is known about his training as an artist. As a young man, he moved from the family farm to Quebec City, where he worked for some time as a clerk and apprenticed as a sign painter. At the age of 24 he left for Italy, where he would make Florence his lifelong home. There, he established his artistic reputation and made a good living as a copyist. On a visit to Canada in 1862, he exhibited and sold many paintings. In 1882 he received a government commission of five hundred dollars to paint a portrait of former Quebec Premier Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau. Falardeau died in Florence in 1889.

The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec has about 20 of Falardeau’s works in its collection.