JACOPO ROBUSTI, IL TINTORETTO* (1518-1594)

Details

JACOPO ROBUSTI, IL TINTORETTO* (1518-1594)

The Dream of Alessandro Farnese

oil on canvas
39¼ x 52½in. (99.7 x 133.5cm.)

In a Venetian late 17th Century carved and gilded frame with raised imbricated fruit moulding

Provenance

Umberto Pini, Bologna
Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, March 24, 1961, lot 79 as 'Tintoretto' with Piero Tozzi, New York (Notable Works of Art now on the Market, The Burlington Magazine, XCVII, no. 628, July 1955, pl. III)

Literature

H.S. Francis in the Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, July 1936, p. 110, illustrated opposite p. 107
A. Venturi, Per il Tintoretto e Paolo Veronese, in La Critica d'Arte, II, no. 1, Feb. 1937, p. 40, pl. 32, fig. 1
A. Venturi, Per Jacopo Tintoretto, in L'Arte, VIII, 1937, pp. 216-9, fig. 2
L. Coletti, il Tintoretto, 1940, p. 46
A.L. Mayer, From the Strasbourg Museum to the Venice Palazzo Ducale, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, I, Feb. 1945, p. 92, fig. 12
B. Suida Manning, Archivo Español de Arte, XXIV, no. 95, 1951
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School, 1957, I, p. 175
P. De Vecchi, L'opera completa del Tintoretto, 1970, p. 138, no. G-12, under 'Altre opere attribuite al Tintoretto'
R. Pallucchini and P. Rossi, Tintoretto. Le opere sacre e profane, 1982, I, p. 192, no. 299; II, p. 479, fig. 382 'A giudicare dalla riproduzione fotografica, l'opera, di cui si sono attualmente perdute le tracce, sembra potersi ascrivere tra quelle autografe del Robusti'

Exhibited

Cleveland Museum of Art, Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition, 1936, no. 168
Buffalo, Albright Art Gallery, Bosch to Beekman, April-May 1950
Birmingham Museum of Fine Art, The Reformation and Counter Reformation, 1954

Lot Essay

It has generally been accepted, since the publication of this canvas by Adolfo Venturi, that it is an autograph work by Jacopo Tintoretto, and discussion has centered upon its dating and the identification of its protagonist. Venturi believed it to be a late work, and associated it with the master's magnum opus, the Paradise in the Doge's Palace in Venice, but more recently Pallucchini and Rossi favored a dating to the artist's middle years, c.1566-8, at the same time as the Portrait of a Young Man in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They believe that both works show young Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, while Mayer argued that the present picture represented the Glory of Saint Luigi Gonzaga. However, two factors militate against Mayer's identification: one is the absence of any emblem of sanctity, such as a halo, and the other is the fact that Luigi Gonzaga is invariably represented in ecclesiastical as opposed to lay dress. It remains the case that the precise significance of the subject - angels pointing out a vision of the Trinity and other holy personages to the sleeping youth - in the context of Alessandro's biography remains obscure