Domenico Tintoretto Venice 1560 - 1635

Franco Cribiori;
With Massimo Ciaccio, Milan, from whom purchased by the present owner.

Domenico Tintoretto had trained in his father Jacopo's studio from a young age, and was considered of sufficient talent to have been admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, the painters' guild, at the tender age of seventeen.  While his style was close to that of his father-- indeed father and son worked together on many projects-- he did not always follow Jacopo's prototypes resolutely.  The present Holy Family demonstrates the varying influences on Domenico.  The facial types and dramatic coloration suggest the work of Jacopo; the Virgin in particular, with her gauze head covering and solidly modeled features recalls the elder Tintoretto's works of the mid 1560s such as demonstated in the holy women portrayed in the Nativity of the Virgin (San Zaccaria, Venice), or the Crucifixion (Santa Maria del Rosario, Venice).  The depiction of the Madonna breast-feeding, while of ancient tradition, however, was less common, and it may have been that Domenico sought a source in the work of other artists, such as that of Titian, who painted a Madonna nursing the Christ Child, late in his career, circa 1570 (National Gallery, London).