Follower of Jacopo Robusti, called Jacopo Tintoretto

Baron Alfred de Rothschild, Paris;
With Durlacher Brothers, New York, by 1927;
From whom purchased by The Cleveland Museum of Art on 27 January 1927 [John Huntington Collection, acc. no. 27.488].

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress Exhibition, 1 June - 1 November 1933, no. 136;
Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art:  The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition, 26 June - 4 October 1936, no. 169;
New York, Durlacher Brothers, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Jacopo Robusti, Il Tintoretto, 1519-1594, 20 February - 18 March 1939, no. 7;
Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Old Masters, 1946;
Winnipeg, Winnipeg Art Gallery Association; Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, Great Masters of the Italian Renaissance, 1400-1600, 4 October - 15 December 1953, no. 31;
Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Venetian Tradition, 1956, no. 47.

Art Digest, 1 April 1927, p. 10;
American Magazine of Art, vol. 18, 1927, reproduced p. 207
W. M. Milliken "Madonna and Child by Jacopo Tintoretto in the John Huntington Collection," in The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 14, 1927, pp. 31-33, reproduced p. 29;
W. M. Milliken, "A Tintoretto for Cleveland," in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 51, 1927, p. 55, reproduced;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, London 1932, p. 558;
The Connoisseur, vol. 103, 1939, p. 216;
A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, vol. IX, Milan 1901-1940, p. 684, reproduced fig. 486;
A. McComb, "A Tintoretto discovered in Minneapolis," in International Studio, vol. 98, 1931, p. 37, reproduced fig. 1;
L. Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, vol. III, New York 1933, reproduced pl. 533.
W. M. Milliken, "World Art at Cleveland," in American Magazine of Art, vol. 29, 1936, p. 432;
M. Breuning, Magazine of Art, vol. 32, part I, 1939, pp. 98-99, reproduced p. 432;
E. von Bercken, Die Gemälde des Jacopo Tintoretto, Munich 1942, no. 66, p. 107, reproduced p. 150;
A. Frankfurter, "Venice, or, The Fluent Brush," in Art News, vol. LV, 1956, reproduced p. 34;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance.  The Venetian School, London 1957, vol. I, p. 171;
P. de Vecchi, L'opera completa de Tintoretto, Milan 1970, no. 198;
B. B. Fredericksen & F. Zeri, Census of the Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge 1972, pp. 199, 338, 573;
R. Pallucchini & P. Rossi, Tintoretto, le opera sacre et profane, vol. II, Milan 1982, part 1, no. 308, p. 195; part II, no. 308, p. 195;
A. Chong, European & American Painting in The Cleveland Museum of Art:  A Summary Catalogue, Cleveland 1993, p. 238, reproduced;
Museo Nacional del Prado, Proceedings of the International Symposium, Jacopo Tintoretto, Supplemental List 2: other Paintings from the Tintoretto Studio ca. 1550-1594, Madrid 2007, p. 143.

The canvas is lined. The surface of the work is in overall good condition. There is craquelure throughout the work. The edges have some abrasions, due to the piece not being in a frame. Under UV; scattered inpainting throughout.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This Madonna and Child appears to belong to a small group of pictures which have been given to Jacopo and/or his studio.  One canvas, of horizontal format, is in the collection of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco (inv. no. 1927.192); that painting shows a similarly disposed Infant Christ, although the figure of the Virgin is shown tilted forward, and the painting differs substantially from the present composition in other ways.  Of much closer composition and comparison is a painting in a private collection, published by Palluchini (see op. cit, p. 195, cat. no. 307, reproduced fig 402).  In that picture, which is slightly larger in size than the present canvas, the figures of the Madonna and Child are also set against a backdrop suggestive of heavenly, glowing light, and would appear to be close in scale (the present image is cropped closer to the figures on all sides) and thus derived from the same source.  While most early scholars attributed the painting in full to Tintoretto (see Literature), Venturi suggested a possible attribution to Jacopo's daughter Marietta Tintoretta.  More recent scholarship, however, has considered it a production of the master's studio.  Most recently, Ilchman and Echols have suggested that it is by an unidentified assistant in Tintoretto's studio, possibly also responsible for the other version of the composition, and have dated it to the 1580s.