(Venice 1549–1605)
Portrait of a philosopher, oil on canvas, 80 x 66 cm, framed

Provenance: Count Heinrich v. Brühl, Dresden (before 1769); Coll. Josef Winter, Vienna (before 1875, as Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of the Physician Andreas Vesalius); Collection of Baroness Auguste Stummer von Tavarnok, Vienna (1895).

Literature: Th. von Frimmel, Verzeichnis der Gemälde im Besitze der Frau Baronin Auguste Stummer von Tavarnok, Vienna 1895, p. 80, no. 189. Comp. Giovanni Contarini, Un pittore aristocratico sulle orme di Tiziano, exh. cat., Milan 2009, and J. Zimmer, “Giovanni Contarini, ein rudolfinischer Künstler?”, in: Prag um 1600, Beiträge zur Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II., Freren 1988. We are grateful to Prof. Ugo Ruggeri, Venice, for identifying the artist (certificate of June 2010). This portrait of a philosopher is by the hand of the painter, writer, scholar, and confidant of Emperor Rudolf II, the Venetian Giovanni Contarini, who was ennobled in Prague in 1600. This is the first work of high quality by this painter, who was influential both for Venetian painting and the court art of Rudolfine Prague, to appear on the art market. Contarini, who was born into a patrician family, was known for his velvety and frequently monumental compositions that enjoyed great popularity both among his contemporaries and later connoisseurs. In 1808, Napoleon ordered the artist’s Homage to Doge Grimaldi to be brought from the Doge’s Palace to the Louvre, where it is still preserved today. Contarini’s work, which shows Titian’s influence, is characterized by a certain morbid quality that complied with the Emperor’s aesthetic wishes and the intellectually sophisticated atmosphere at the Prague court. The Emperor’s great esteem for Contarini not least expressed itself in the sovereign’s raising the artist to a knighthood. The present painting also has an impressive provenance: in the 18th Century when it was in the famous collection of the Saxon prime minister Count Brühl, for which a special gallery building was erected in Dresden in 1742–44. After the count’s death, his collection of paintings was acquired by Catherine II. In the 19th Century, our painting entered the Viennese collections Winter and Stummer von Tavarnok.

Provenance: Count Heinrich v. Brühl, Dresden (before 1769); Coll. Josef Winter, Vienna (before 1875, as Sebastiano del Piombo, Portrait of the Physician Andreas Vesalius); Collection of Baroness Auguste Stummer von Tavarnok, Vienna (1895). Literature: Th