Painting treatment: Tintoretto's Doge Pietro Loredano
Tintoretto's Doge Pietro Loredano before treatment (left) and after treatment (right).
The portrait of the Venetian Doge Pietro Loredano (1482-1570) by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-94) was the artist's first commission as the Republic's sensaria, or official painter. However, the present painting was not the official portrait that hung in the Doge's Palace by St. Mark's Square in Venice - that was destroyed in a Palace fire in 1577. This picture is, in all probability, the initial canvas which the artist painted the sitter from life and kept in his studio as a model for later versions, as was customary in painting studios in sixteenth century Venice. It contains numerous reworkings and unfinished elements which distinguish it from other known portraits of the Doge.
Detail, proper right hand.
Two painted-out gold buttons are partially visible between thumb and lowest button.
An x-radiograph of the painting reveals critical adjustments made to the appearance of the Doge. The initial layers of paint visible in the x-radiograph show him rendered with a thinner neck and narrower shoulders, and with his belt positioned lower than in the finished piece. Close examination of the actual paint surface shows Tintoretto painted out two of the gold buttons at the lower end of his stole; one can be seen with the naked eye directly beneath the sitter's thumb.
An x-radiograph (illustrated with detail, right) revealed evidence of Tintoretto's reworkings of the neck and shoulder area.
Another revealing aspect of the artist's technique is the varying degree of finish he applied to similar details of the painting. The gold button closest to the sitter's beard is highly modelled and finished while the others below become progressively more sketchy. This may be another example of the artist's notoriously swift and impatient working technique, or may be evidence of the artist using the canvas to establish a schematic composition without concern for the finish one would see in the "official" version.
The gold buttons are most detailed at the top (illustrated left).
The lower buttons become progressively more sketchy (illustrated right).
The painting was cleaned in 1997.
For further information on the artist's changes to the painting, see "Tintoretto's Doge Pietro Loredano at the National Gallery of Victoria: The earlier version?", by John Payne, Art Bulletin of Victoria No. 33, 1993
Carl Villis.
Flora McDonald Anderson, Conservator of Paintings.
Related information:
Doge Pietro Loredano (1567–70)
Jacopo TINTORETTO
Italian 1519–94
Doge Pietro Loredano (1567–70)
oil on canvas
109.5 x 93.0 cm
Felton Bequest, 1928
3677-3
