TINTORETTO
(b. 1518, Venezia, d. 1594, Venezia)

The Miracle of St Mark Freeing the Slave (detail)

1548
Oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

The soldier in the shirt of chain mail was modeled on a figure from Titian's Crowning With Thorns (Musée du Louvre, Paris), which Tintoretto must have studied closely around 1541 before it was sent to Milan. The depiction of the chain mail gives Tintoretto an opportunity to display his artistic speed and economy: the uniformly dark underpainting on a light ground was first scored with guidelines following the shape of the body, and then the chain-mail links were scraped away, overlaid with a glaze to create shadows, and heightened with lead white.