108 1 MAR I ET TA ROBUST I ( VENI CE c . 1551 –1590 VENI CE) Self-Portrait with Jacopo Strada (1507–1588) c. 1567/68 Oil on canvas 99.5 × 121 cm Provenance: Acquired 1749 from Imperial Gallery in Prague Castle; from 1945 to 1955 in USSR (Moscow); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Gal.-Nr. 270 Literature: Borghini 1584, pp. 558 f.; inv. Prague 1662, fol. 16v, no. 214; inv. Prague 1718, no. 214; inv. Prague 1737, no. 292; inv. Dresden 1747–1750, 36r, no. 310; cat. Dresden 1765, G.I. no. 187; cat. Dresden 2007, vol. 1, p. 216; cat. Dresden 2006/07, vol. 2, p. 538; Bull 2009, pp. 680 f. This double portrait shows an elderly gentleman seated in a wooden chair. He turns towards a younger person, who leans towards him, pointing with their right hand at something outside the picture space. The yellowed varnish diminishes our appreciation of the sophisticated handling of the figures. The black garments merge with the dark background, so that only the hands and faces are bathed in light. In the Dresden inventory of 1747–1750, this painting is attributed to “Giacomo” (Jacopo) Robusti, known as Tintoretto, and described accordingly: “Quadro in tela, con due ritratti vestiti di nero, uno Vecchio, e l’altro giovane, più di mezze figure al naturale, Opera delle megliori, fù della Galleria di Praga.” Duncan Bull has identified the standing figure as Marietta Robusti, the once famous daughter of Jacopo Tintoretto, who – according to her later biographer Carlo Ridolfi – dressed as a boy in order to accompany her father. Relying upon Raffaello Borghini, her first biographer, who reports that Marietta executed a portrait of Jacopo Strada which incorporated her own likeness, Bull concluded that Borghini must be referring to the present double portrait of Jacopo Strada and Marietta Robusti, formerly in the collection of Emperor Maximilian II. The debate about whether Borghini was describing a double portrait or instead two individual portraits – “[…] fece il ritratto di Iacopo Strada Antiquario dell’Imperador Massimiliano secondo, & e il ritratto di lei stessa, i quali, come cosa rara, suaMaestà gli tenne in camera sua […]” – remains unsettled by the gallery entry of 1765: here as well, the description fails to make it clear whether the reference is to a double portrait on a single canvas or instead to two separate ones. Notwithstanding, the work’s Prague provenance, alongwith the biographical remarks, argue in favour of Bull’s thesis. Recently, his argument acquired additional weight through an X-radiographic examination.1 In the X-ray image, the figure standing on the right is clearly female. This discovery is consistent with the entry on the painting in the Prague inventory of 1662: “214 Tintoretto origl. / Ein Contrafect eines /Manns, unndt eines /Weibs Bildts […and of awoman].” The double portrait of Jacopo Strada and Marietta Robusti probably dates from circa 1567/68, when the imperial antiquarian was staying in Venice and Mantua on assignment from the Duke of Bavaria. Self-portraits have long been regarded as statements of self-reflection. The costume and the surroundings through which an artist chooses to stage himor herself – whether at work, playing music (fig. 1, p. 28), or in the guise of some mythological or historical figure – tell the viewer much about his or her ambitions, pretensions, and self-image, as well as about the artistic vocation itself. Besides individual portraits, we routinely find double portraits: images of friendship (one of the best-known being by Raphael2) or of couples, for example Rubens and Isabella Brant.3 What makes this double portrait so special is that the artist depicts herself in the company of the highly influential antiquarian to the Habsburg emperor. In doing so, she refers explicitly to Titian’s earlier Portrait of Jacopo Strada,4 and depicts herself as a woman with emphatic self-confidence. But the portrait was not necessarily commissioned by Strada. Perhaps he was simply a useful connection or intermediary who offered his assistance in establishing contacts at the imperial court. Evidently, the attempt was successful: this extraordinary double portrait of the artist with the antiquarian was cherished by Maximilian II as a rare thing (cosa rara) in his private chambers. | I R I S YVONNE WAGNER 1 See essay by Iris Yvonne Wagner in this volume, pp. 20 f. 2 Raphael, Self-Portrait with a Friend, 1518–1520, oil on canvas, 99×83 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. A14. 3 Peter Paul Rubens, The Honeysuckle Bower (or Rubens and Isabella Brant), c. 1609/10, canvas transferred to panel, 178× 136.5 cm, Munich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. no. 334. 4 See essay by Iris Yvonne Wagner in this volume, pp. 16 f.
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