Live Auction 15495Old Masters Day Sale
Jacopo Robusti, called Jacopo Tintoretto (Venice 1519-1594)
Lot 193

Jacopo Robusti, called Jacopo Tintoretto (Venice 1519-1594)

Portrait of a boy, probably of the Mocenigo family, bust-length

Closed6 July 2018

Price Realised

GBP 97,500

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How to sell

Jacopo Robusti, called Jacopo Tintoretto (Venice 1519-1594)
Portrait of a boy, probably of the Mocenigo family, bust-length
oil on canvas
22 ½ x 20 1/8 in. (57.1 x 51 cm.)

Adolph Thiem (1832-1923), Berlin and San Remo.
with Paul Cassirer, Berlin.
with Knoedler, New York, 1929.
with Robert Frank Ltd., New York, 1937.
with Knoedler, New York, 1941.
Frances and John L. Loeb, New York.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 23 May 1997, lot 81 ($162,000).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 6 July 2007, lot 222 (£102,000).

Specialist note

As first suggested by Rodolfo Pallucchini in 1954 (op. cit.), this portrait of a young boy is identifiable with the disguised portrait in the figure of the music-making angel in Tintoretto’s Doge Alvise Mocenigo and Family before the Madonna and Child of circa 1575 (Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 1961.9.44). The features of the two figures are closely comparable, thus suggesting that the sitter was a member of the Mocenigo family. As such, Pallucchini argues that he was a grandson of Doge Giovanni Mocenigo (1409-1485) and the great nephew of Doge Alvise (1507-1577) in Tintoretto’s votive canvas. Rossi dates the present portrait to around 1575, and thus to the same moment as the Washington picture.