Jacopo Robusti, called Jacopo Tintoretto

In an English private collection since before 1880;
From which sold ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby's, 12 December 1973, lot 75, for £60,000 to De Botton;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Sotheby's, 23 June 1982, lot 56, for £130,000, when probably acquired by the late owner.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has been lined onto fine canvas apparently in the nineteenth century with a stretcher probably from the same period. The top edge is undoubtedly original with traces of scalloping and a few old accidental knocks. The other three edges are cleanly cut so it is not certain if the picture originally extended outside the present limits on those sides. The remarkable condition of the painting does not suggest that it was a fragment. There are two minor retouched incidental damages in the mid left background, which may not even have perforated the canvas, some retouching in the lower right corner and the few knocks retouched along the top edge. The characteristic late Venetian texture is well preserved, as is the rich juicy brushwork, with dramatic contrasts of tone, and flecks of light. The deepest black is unworn as are the tangled threads of the beard and complex forehead. There are some small retouching strokes under the right eye and at its side, with a small diagonal scratch on the side of the nose, but otherwise apart from one or two negligeable dots of retouching in the beard and on the forehead the portrait is in an exceptionally intact state, with the surrounding swirl of the background equally well preserved apart from the two or three retouchings mentioned above. A film of older varnish has been left in the background, only visible under ultra violet light. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This remarkable portrait by Jacopo Tintoretto demonstrates the artist's pre-eminence in the genre of portraiture in the second half of the 16th century in Venice. The painting was in an English private collection since the late 19th century and appears to be unpublished, despite it having been sold at auction in 1973; three years before the publication of Paola Rossi's volume on Tintoretto's portraits.

Portraiture always held an important place in Tintoretto's œuvre: whether in the form of independent portraits or figures inserted into larger religious or historical narrative scenes, portraits appear in the artist's work from an early date.¹  Rarely, however, do Tintoretto's independent portraits achieve such naturalism and lively characterisation as they do here (other than in his self-portraits²). Tintoretto gives us no clues as to the gentleman's identity: his black costume is unspecific and, unlike other cases in which his sitters are given props or landscapes to assist in identifying their occupation, he is set against a plain background.³  And yet the portrait is by no means dull: the artist clearly felt great compassion and respect for his subject. The gentleman has a spirited expression, his averted eyes glistening with tears and his dark brows slightly furrowed, as if he were distracted by something outside our own field of vision. The suggested vigour of the sitter is reflected in Tintoretto's energetic brushwork, particularly in the hair, beard and eyebrows, which give the gentleman a naturalistic air. Tintoretto has flicked his brush swiftly over the paint surface; more delicate in areas such as the beard and more loaded with paint along the man's receding hairline. He has painted more thickly around the head, creating a sort of 'aureole' which serves to emphasise the expressiveness of the face against the plain background behind; a technique adopted by Velázquez in the following century.

Chronology in Tintoretto's portraiture is extremely difficult, particularly with the absence of clues as to the sitter's identity, but the bravura with which this portrait is painted indicates that it must be a mature work, executed entirely by the master himself. The lifelike portrayal of his subject, whose attention is seemingly diverted, is inspired by Titian's portraiture of the 1540s and '50s. Tintoretto's painting is likely to post-date this by some years and indeed comes closest in painting technique and psychological intensity to his Portrait of an elderly gentleman wearing a fur coat in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which has been dated to circa 1570.⁴

1. Vasari praised Tintoretto for his portraits incorporated in the Coronation of Barbarossa, painted for the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Ducale shortly after 1545 but destroyed in 1577.
2. See, for example, his self-portrait formerly in New York, reproduced in P. Rossi, Jacopo Tintoretto. I Ritratti, Venice 1976, fig. 9.
3. Although often not identifiable with names, Tintoretto frequently portrays his sitters in costumes that denote their rank or profession; for example, his Portrait of a gentleman in armour, aged thirty (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) or Portrait of a senator (County Museum of Art, Los Angeles), both reproduced in Rossi, op. cit., figs. 94 and 95.
4. Rossi, ibid., pp. 129-30, reproduced fig. 149, a detail fig. 150, and in colour plate XIV.