Bonifazio de' Pitati called Bonifazio Veronese Verona 1487-1553 Venice

Probably commissioned from the artist by the Gradenigo family, Venice;
Acquired by the grandfather of the present owner in 1903;
Thence by family descent and hanging in a Schloß in Southern Germany ever since.

As a young man Bonifacio de' Pitati travelled in the company of his father from his native Verona to Venice, where he is thought to have joined Palma Vecchio's workshop (which he probably took over after the latter’s death in 1528). By 1530 Bonifacio had clearly made a reputation for himself as an independent painter since he was commissioned to produce a large cycle of paintings for the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi (the canvases are today in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice).¹ Some of these, particularly Christ enthroned with saints and The Judgement of Solomon, are painted on a similarly large scale and the latter scene also takes place in a complex architectural setting.² Other similarities can be found in two further paintings from the set, the Fall of the Manna and The Feeding of the Five Thousand,³ in which studio participation is likely and countless figures are amassed in a frieze-like arrangement in the lower half of each composition, not unlike the fighting figures here. The Camerlenghi canvases almost certainly have some studio participation, largely due to their large dimensions, and are datable to the 1530s; a similar date of execution for the present work seems likely.

With Jacopo Tintoretto and Andrea Schiavone, Bonifacio de’ Pitati became one of the most important narrative painters of the fourth decade of the 16th century in Venice. Used to painting on a large scale, he was able to imbue well-known biblical and historical scenes with the movement and colour so typical of the Venetian school of painting. Whilst frescoes were used elsewhere in Italy, the damp Venetian climate necessitated the use of canvas for vast decorative cycles or schemes in the lagoon area, and Bonifacio specialised in executing such works for confraternities and private patrons alike. The present painting would quite probably have decorated a large room or hallway in a Venetian palazzo, and certain compositional motifs recur in his work. Other paintings in which Bonifacio places his figures within an architectural capriccio with an extensive landscape to the right include his Dives and Lazarus in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, which is of comparable dimensions to the present work, and his Return of the Prodigal Son in the Galleria Borghese, Rome.⁴ No other variants of this composition or versions of this subject appear to be recorded in Bonifacio's œuvre.  The attribution to Bonifazio was confirmed by Rolf Kultzen in 1997, who compares it with Bonifazio’s Massacre of the Innocents of 1539 and Judgement of Solomon of 1533,and dates it to the 1530s.⁵

This picture was published by Helga Wäß as an early work by Jacopo Tintoretto, painted after 1539.⁶   She has shown that the painting is most likely to have been commissioned for the Gradenigo family, whose coat-of-arms were identified by Andrew John Martin on the shield on the ground beneath Romulus, from whom the Gradenigo family claimed descent, and who regarded themselves as guardians of the governance of Venice according to traditions established in Ancient Rome.⁷  Furthermore, she connects the architecture of the second building on the left depicted with elements of the Villa Gradenigo-Dolfin on the Brenta, to which the dolphin sumounted by Neptune in the sculpture in the left background may allude. 

1 See S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia. Opere d'arte del secolo XVI, Rome 1962, cat. nos. 61-109, all reproduced.
2 The Christ enthroned with Saints measures 194 by 448 cm. (inv. no. 331; Moschini Marconi, op. cit., cat. no. 61) and the Judgement of Solomon measures 180 by 309 cm. (inv. no. 54; ibid., cat. no. 71).
3 They measure 197 by 447 cm. (idem, cat. no. 84) and 195 by 452 cm. (idem, cat. no. 85) respectively.
4 Dives and Lazarus measures 205 by 437 cm. (inv. no. 326; idem, cat. no. 60). The Return of the Prodigal Son is reproduced in B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School, London 1967, vol. II, plate 1146.
5 Written communication.  Both works are in the Accademia, Venice.
6 See under Literature.
7 Idem, pp. 19-33, 39-40, 79.  Dr. Martin has also verbally confirmed the attribution to Bonifazio de' Pitati.