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

Portrait of a Genoese Nobleman

c. 1550
Oil on canvas, 154 x 131 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

This portrait is notable for the restrained elegance of the setting, and most of all for Tintoretto's unusually strong and three-dimensional modeling of the face. Interestingly, the great Baroque portrait painter Anthony van Dyck, who drew this painting in Niccolò Doria's house in Genoa, took it for a Titian. In this work, and with his chameleon-like stylistic adaptability, Tintoretto was obviously taking account of the conservative taste of his Genoese client - probably a member of the powerful art-loving Doria family.