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Dimensions: measurements note 61.5 by 51 cm.; 24 1/4 by 20 1/8 in.
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Provenance: 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.
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION FORMED BY THE LATE DR GUSTAV RAU
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 The painting was in an English private collection since the late 19th century and appears to be unpublished, despite it having been sold at auction in 1973; three years before the publication of Paola Rossi's volume on Tintoretto's portraits.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 aeuvre: 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.υ1 Rarely, however, do Tintoretto's independent portraits achieve such naturalism and lively characterisation as they do here (other than in his self-portraitsυ2). 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.υ3 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.υ4 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.
