DOMENICO ROBUSTI, CALLED DOMENICO TINTORETTO | Double portrait of a nobleman and a boy, probably two brothers

Baron Detlov von Hadeln (1878-1935), Florence;
Count Dr. Alexander von Frey (1882-1951), Paris;
With P. de Boer, Amsterdam, 1963 (when exhibited Florence, 3^a Biennale Mercato Internazionale dell'Antiquariato, 14 September - 14 October 1963);
With Galerie Nicoline Pon, Zurich, by 1982, where acquired by the present owner.

E. von der Berken, in F. Thieme and U. Becker (eds), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstlern, vol. XXXIII, Leipzig 1939, p. 194;
E. von der Berken, Die Gemälde des Jacopo Tintoretto, Munich 1942, p. 120, cat. no. 285 (as Jacopo Tintoretto, datable to 1570-80);
B. Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance, London 1957, vol. I, The Venetian School, p. 173 (as Jacopo Tintoretto);
R. Palluchini and P. Rossi, Tintoretto: Le Opere sacre e profane, Milan 1982, vol. I, pp. 236-37, cat. no. R11, reproduced vol. II, p. 618, fig. 614 (as Jacopo Tintoretto).

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 painting has an old glue lining which is still nicely supporting the paint layer. The artist, like Titian, paints very broadly and loosely in some areas. Most of the somewhat broad restorations that have been applied throughout the painting are clearly visible under ultraviolet light. This is a picture that would respond well to more focused, accurate retouching. While there are certainly areas that require retouching, such as the thinness and abrasion in the red clothing of the boy on the left side, this is not unexpected in a painting of this kind from this period. The condition is better than the broad restorations would indicate.
"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."

Domenico Tintoretto and his elder sister Marietta both worked in the studio of their father, Jacopo Tintoretto. Domenico focused on portraiture more than any other subject, and in so doing was one of the first Venetian painters to have based their career so significantly on the genre - a fact remarked upon by contemporaries, such as Carlo Ridolfi, Jacopo's biographer. The identities of the sitters here remain unknown, and it is a matter of speculation as to whether the portrait represents father and son, or a pair of brothers. In any case, the double portrait reflects on youth, adulthood and the passing of time, themes explored in the works of Domenico's Venetian forebears, such as Titian and Jacopo Bassano, not to mention his father Jacopo Tintoretto, in paintings such as Portrait of an old man and a boy, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.¹ The present portrait is clearly much inspired by Jacopo's work, and in its published history has always been considered as such. It contains, however, Domenico's characteristic preference for a greater range of colour, and his predilection for ancillary details, reflected here in the depiction of the landscape, which occupies a significant proportion of the painting. Jacopo did depict Venetic landscapes in several of his portraits, one of the most painterly of which appears in the Portrait of Marino Grimani, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.² But many of his most characteristic and successful portraits are those devoid of background details, focusing attention on the principal subject.

In deliberate contrast to this feature of his father's works, and through the influence of Jacopo's Flemish assistants - the landscape painters, Lodewijk Toeput (il Pozzoserrato) and Pauwels Francke (Paolo Fiammingo) - Domenico developed the portrayal of landscape backgrounds in his portraits, such as the Portrait of a Sculptor, in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.³ The landscape visible in the present work recalls that in the pendant to Jacopo's aforementioned portrait of Grimani, the Portrait of Dogaressa Morosina Morosini, in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, attributed to Jacopo's workshop and possibly Domenico,⁴ as well as to his Portrait of a seated young boy, recorded at the Heim Gallery, Paris and London, in which the likeness of the sitter is remarkably similar to the child on the left of the present work.⁵

NOTE ON PROVENANCE

Baron Detlev von Hadeln played an important role in the history of Venetian Renaissance scholarship. He published works on Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese and Canaletto, and in 1924 produced an annotated edition of Ridolfi's 1648 survey of the Venetian artists: Maraviglie dell'arte, ovvero le vite degli pittori e dello stato. He studied at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, 1909-10, where he founded the photographic archive there.

1 See P. Rossi, Jacopo Tintoretto. I Ritratti, vol. I, Venice 1974, p. 129, reproduced fig. 119.
2 See Rossi 1974, p. 111, reproduced fig. 95.
3 See R. Echols and F. Ilchman (eds), Tintoretto. Artist of Renaissance Venice, exh. cat., Washington 2018, p. 167, reproduced in colour p. 166, fig. 146.
4 See Rossi 1974, p. 115, reproduced fig. 96.
5 See Rossi 1974, pp. 119-20, reproduced fig. 121.