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

Portrait of a Procurator of St Mark's

1570s
Oil on canvas, 139 x 101 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Compared with the official portraiture of an earlier generation, Titian's portrait is endowed with a new effect of physical presence and with a new grandeur of scale. In these respects it was the model for later portraits of Venetian noblemen and office-holders, as in Tintoretto's Portrait of a Procurator of St Mark's. In its composition, this portrait looks back to Titian's portraits of robed dignitaries such as Jacopo Dolfin, while expanding further the length and the scale.