Jacopo dal Ponte, called Jacopo Bassano, and Studio

Private collection, France.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been restored. The canvas has an old lining and a very attractive surface. The texture of the paint is good and lively. The work is clean but not abraded. There is a noticeable lack of retouches, which is unusual for a work of this kind. There are small scuffs in the corner which need restoration, but the condition is excellent overall.
"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."

Previously unpublished, this dramatic representation of the Mocking of Christ was executed by Jacopo Bassano, with the assistance of his workshop, at the very end of the artist’s career.  A very similar version of this painting, now in a private collection, Rome, was exhibited in Bassano del Grappa in 1993 and is thought to date to around 1589-90.¹  From the time of its earliest publication in 1936, Bettini noted in the Rome canvas the distinct influence of Titian’s The Crowning of Thorns, painted almost two decades earlier, circa 1572-76, in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. 2272).²  In 1565, before Titian’s treatment of the subject came into being, Bassano had depicted the Mocking of Christ in horizontal format, in a painting now in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice (fig. 1).³  Like the present composition, the Accademia painting depicts a brutal figure towering over Christ with his fist raised.  A drawing, now in a private collection, Paris, shows a similarly posed figure, his right shoulder and chest exposed, and below it a bust-length study of a figure with a short beard and a band tied around his downcast head (fig. 2).  Writing in 1944, Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat proposed that the drawing was a study for the Rome canvas, however, the narrow, more angular mustachioed face and slenderer figure suggest it was more likely executed in preparation for the earlier Accademia composition.⁴  

 

1. F.M. Aliberti Gaudioso in B.L. Brown and P. Marini (eds.), Jacopo Bassano, c. 1510-1592, exhibition catalogue, Fort Worth 1993, p. 448, cat. no. 77, reproduced p. 449.
2. A. Ballarin, Jacopo Bassano, Padua 1995, vol. I, part III, reproduced figs. 441-442.
3. P. Humfrey, Titian, The Complete Paintings, London 2007, pp. 364-365, cat. no. 290, reproduced.
4. H. Tiezte and E. Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the XV and XVI century, New York 1944, p. 49; F.M. Aliberti Gaudioso, op. cit.