(Venice 1560–1635)
Portrait of a nobleman, full-length, the Grand Canal, Venice, beyond,
oil on canvas, 194 x 119.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Donà delle Rose collection, Venice;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Giorgio Fossaluzza for confirming the attribution and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

Fossaluzza dates this work to Domenico Tintoretto’s most advanced maturity during. The composition belongs to a portrait type distinctive to both Domenico Tintoretto and Leandro Bassano that includes a landscape or urban view seen through a window, often either of Venice or its lagoon expanses.

As is frequently the case in Domenico’s portraits, the composition includes a red hanging drape that confers a certain solemnity and theatricality to the depiction, as required of an official portrait; this function is also more generally communicated by the work’s compositional type, by the pose of the sitter and by other qualities of the setting and not least by the painting’s considerable size.

The subject stands alongside a table draped in red velvet on which he rests his right hand, alongside his black cylindrical hat with a gold band. As was the fashion, he is dressed in black and wears a patterned doublet with a line of closely set buttons down the front. The shoulders are ‘winged’ in military fashion, while the sleeves are tight fitting along their length and blooming at the wrist where they are enriched by lace cuffs. These match the ample white lace ruff that frames the subject’s head in spectacular fashion. His mantle (or ferraiuolo) is bordered with fur and wrapped round the subject’s left arm and waist. His breaches are of the same material as the doublet. His outfit is completed by tightfitting black socks and leather shoes with rounded toes. The sitter wears an affected, up-turned moustache and a very short tawny beard cut to the form of the so-called pizzetto, his hair is combed to lend volume to the head. This personality is additionally distinguished by the dagger he wears at his belt and by the sword upon which he rests his left hand.

Indulging in the description of the subject’s dress is necessary since, in the absence of any other telling feature allowing his precise identification, this is the only source from which it is possible to deduce the sitter’s status. Indeed, there is no trace either of inscriptions or coats-of-arms. The sword and dagger are the attributes of knights, and also of higher ranks of the aristocracy. Certain parts of the costume, notably the high lace neck ruff, were in fashion throughout Europe during the latter half of the sixteenth century and remained so, with a certain inflection of Spanish taste, into the first decades of the Seicento.

None of these features allow us to trace a specific individual from within the Venetian aristocracy. One detail, however, is significant: the shape of the cylindrical hat which, with a specialist’s knowledge, can be shown to occupy a particular place in the history of costume. Indeed, consultation of the extraordinary repertoire of Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti antichi, et moderni di tutto il mondo (Venice 1598) reveals that similarly shaped hats were not worn by Venetians, but by distinguished foreigners, notably the English and Flemish. Thus, if this peculiar habit were indisputably confirmed, the Venetian view that distinguishes this portrait should be interpreted as the record of a visit to Venice by a foreign aristocrat. In this light one might consider the view to be allusive, rather than casual, and perhaps a record of where the sitter was a guest, or where he lived, during his visit to Venice.

The room in which the subject is represented is that of the piano nobile or portego, accessed by a broad external stair, in a manner typical of Venetian palazzi. From this raised level there is a view onto the Grand Canal that can be recognised on account both of its size and the high buildings over-looking it. Indeed, the view might be identified as that onto the so-called volta del Canal grando, that is at the most pronounced bend in the water course at the height of Ca’ Foscari and the Rio San Pantalon. In the distance, on the right side of the canal can be seen the run of buildings at the height of the Palazzo Mocenigo Casa Nuova. Many embarkations, including a good number of gondolas, run their course on the famous waters but none are especially embellished as to allude to the cortege of an individual of rank.

Among the many portraits with a landscape or urban window view by Domenico Tintoretto, it should be noted that those with full length figures are rare while this type of composition is not lacking in the portraiture of Jacopo Tintoretto. The Portrait of a Gentleman recently on the art market should be especially singled out (see Hawak sale, American Art Association, New York, 4-5 February 1931, no. 178; Christie’s London, 8 December 2004, lot 83; Sotheby’s London, 6 December 2007, lot 244; Dorotheum Vienna, 18 October 2016, lot 212). Indeed, this work has many similarities of composition and style to the present painting, even if this work, most recently seen in Vienna, stems from an earlier date around 1600.

The great innovation of the painting under discussion rests in the importance given to the view of Venice by virtue of the transformation of the usual window into a doorway and by the original inclusion of the balustrade of the external stair: these solutions find no comparable equivalent among the portraits of Domenico Tintoretto. The modernity of the costume, and especially the splendour of the lace ruff has no equal in the artist’s output although such ruffs are known to have been worn in Venice during these years. Reference may be usefully made to the Portrait of a Young Knight (Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia; see Fossaluzza, 2011, pp. 260-263, cat. 167) which is signed and dated 1620 by the Flemish painter Pietro Mera active in Venice. Both the composition and the costume also find points of comparison with the court portraits of another Venetian painter, Sante Peranda, as shown by his portraits of Luigi d’Este, Alfonso d’Este and Alessandro I Pico (Palazzo Ducale, Mantua) which date to the first two decades of the seventeenth century (see G. Martinelli Braglia, 1987, figs. 25, 29, 31).

With regard to the style of the painting here under discussion, the evolution and stylistic versatility demonstrated by Domenico Tintoretto in his extraordinary practice of portraiture should be taken into account. At the present time there is as yet no systematic study of his significant production, consequently the recognition, especially of his later work, such as the present painting dated to around 1620, can still be problematic. This final phase reveals certain typical poses, means of depicting details or to a tendency to simplify for example the scenic components of the composition. Moreover, the support of assistants is more easily discernible. Consequently, one encounters differing modes of painting in the landscapes and urban views, indeed, at times a broader more impressionistic manner emerges, and at others, as in the present case, a more ‘graphic’ detailed mode of painting is deployed in which one might note an echo of the example of Leandro Bassano, as in the present case in the reflections on the water, which resemble embroidered fabric.