Pygmalion and Galatea

Bronzino had an intimate knowledge of Pontormo’s portrait of Francesco Guardi as a Halberdier, because, as indicated by Vasari, he painted its cover, the Pygmalion and Galatea. The covering of portraits derived from the practice of fitting mirrors within an encasement. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the practice extended to portraits, which were likened to mirrors.