Jacopo Robusti known as Tintoretto (1518 - 1594)... Lot 293

Jacopo Robusti known as Tintoretto (1518 - 1594) , workshop of; Marietta del Tintoretto (c. 1554 - 1590) (?); or Cesare Vecellio (1521 -1601) (?) Flora or Female Portrait (Irene of Spilimbergo?), c. 1580-1590. Oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm Distinctive elements: on frame, in black marker, "L.K 768 / SAF"; paper label tied with red thread on left corner of verso, in black pen, "L.K. 768" Provenance: Safarik Collection, San Michele in Teverina; Koelliker Collection (September 2002) Conservation status. Support: 80% (rintelo, frame replaced). Conservation status. Surface: 65% (widespread color fading, including in the face, worn background) In 16th-century Venice, portraiture enjoyed its period of greatest popularity and fortune, in the wake of the masterpieces created by great masters such as Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto. The "Portrait of a Maiden" presented here in the bare strength of the original painting, following a thorough cleaning and not yet reintegrated, has long been preserved in the collection of Eduard A. Safarik (1928-2015), a great connoisseur of Venetian painting, lagoon and hinterland, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. His contributions on the London views of Canaletto (1961), Sebastiano del Piombo (1963), Veronese (1964, 1968, 1988), the Venetian eighteenth century in Czechoslovakian collections (1964), Cariani (1972, 1984), Forabosco (1973, 1996) may be mentioned by topic, Francesco and Pietro Calzetta (1974), Girolamo and Giulio Campagnola (1974), Mazzoni (1974), Camillo Capelli (1975), Liss (1975), Caprioli (1976), Eismann (1976), Ruschi (1976), Caroto (1977), Negri (1978), Catena (1979), Pallucchini (1981, 1984, 2001), Fetti (1984, 1985, 1990, 1996; of Fetti Safarik also edited the catalog raisonné in 1991), seventeenth-century painting in Venice (1988, 1989, 2003), still life in the Veneto (1989), Tinelli (1990), Johann Kupezky (1964, 1972, 2001). Safarik believed the small canvas under consideration to be a self-portrait of Marietta Robusti (c. 1554 - 1590), daughter of Jacopo Tintoretto (c. 1518 - 1594), an exceedingly rare painter despite her early fame. Carlo Ridolfi writes of her in "Le Maraviglie dell'arte" (1648, pp. 71-72) that it was "Marietta's particular dowry, however, to know how to make good portraits [...] She also portrayed many Venetian gentlemen, and ladies, whom she gladly met practicing with, being filled with gentle features, and holding them back with song, and sound. Moreover, he made the portrait of Iacopo Strada antiquarian of Maximilian the Emperor, on which he made a gift to that Majesty, as a rare work: whereupon Caesar became enamored of her valor and had her sought out by the Pade, and the same request was made to him by Philippus II. King of Spain, and the Archduke Ferdinand. But Tintoretto was more soon pleased to see her married in Mario Augusta Gioieliere, to see her always near him, loving her tenderly, than to be deprived of her, though a favorite d Prencipi. He also worked other works of invention, & some he drew from Father. She made many portraits of goldsmiths who were friends of her husband, some of which we have seen: but with the sending of families, many have been lost." (... continued: full card in the catalog pdf at the link https://goforarts.com/doc/VB_IT_2_2/Meraviglie_Atto_II_HR.pdf . The catalog also includes lots not available on online platforms, including many of the most prestigious).