Bottega di Jacopo Tintoretto. Ritratto di Senatore Veneziano della Famiglia Cappello.

The figure depicted in three quarters wears the red robone, with an ermine lining, characteristic of the Venetian senators. In the left hand appears the handkerchief, an important symbol of social status, flaunted more and more over the course of the century. The scene is framed by a draped curtain that extends on both sides of the room and at the top; on the right, a window opens onto a hilly landscape with a village in the background. The general setting and typing of the portrait of man, lead the painting back to the workshop of Jacopo Tintoretto from which many portraits of Venetian notables came out. The same typology, with the curtain, the window on the right and the handkerchief, is present in a portrait of a Venetian senator kept in the Ambrosiana Library. We can assume that the character depicted is a leading exponent of the important Cappello family, Bartolomeo Cappello, 1519 - 1594, famous for being the father of Bianca Cappello. He held numerous positions in the Republic of Venice: One of the Forty of Venice (1549 and 1552), Old Auditor (1555), Provveditore sopra i Dazi (1562), Provveditore alla Santità (1567), Officiale alle Ragion Nuovo (1568), Councilor of Pregadi (1573) and Podestà of Treviso (from 1575 to 1577). In this portrait he seems to be between forty and fifty years old, so the canvas could be dated to the sixth decade of the 16th century. Mason Rinaldi, Domenico Tintoretto and the legacy of the workshop, in Jacopo Tintoretto, proceedings of the international congress (Madrid, Museo Nazionale del Prado, 26 - 27 February 2007) edited by M. F. Falomir and B. Aikema, Madrid 2009, pp. 84-90. See The Portrait of a Senator, preserved at The Havard Art Museums in Cambridge (1927.204; EP Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalog including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 131, 339, repr. B / w cat. No. 703) For the portrait of the Ambrosiana Library, Link resource: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/opere-arte/schede/L0070 -00027 / Doretta Davanzo Poli, Fashion in paintings and documents, in: https://www.dcuci.univr.it/documenti/Avviso/all/all444186.pdf.