Currently not on view
Venice supplicating the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ for the Cessation of the Plague,
1630–31
Domenico Tintoretto, Italian, 1560–1635
x1948-1919
Son of the famous Jacopo Tintoretto, Domenico distinguished himself in Venice as an innovative draftsman, particularly in his preliminary oil sketches. This example can be connected with a votive painting in the church of San Francesco della Vigna. The canvas was executed when the artist was about seventy and commemorates the end of the plague of 1630–31, one of the most virulent outbreaks of the pestilence in Italian history. In the upper portion of the sketch, the Virgin entreats the seated Christ; below, a crowned female figure signifying Venice gestures to a pair of corpses on the ground. Possibly considered indecorous by the church patrons, the corpses were replaced in the painting by a larger figure of Venice and presumed portraits of female donors.
More Context
Special Exhibition
This preliminary sketch for a painting in the Venetian church of San Francesco della Vigna shows the allegorical figure of Venice pleading with the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ on behalf of the suffering. The prominent display of bloated bodies in the foreground—similar to the corpses in Carlo Coppola’s painting to the right—must have been perceived by the patrons as indecorous for a devotional image. Tintoretto<br>relegated similar figures to the distant background in his finished work.
Information
Title
Venice supplicating the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ for the Cessation of the Plague
Dates
1630–31
Maker
Medium
Oil paint on gray laid paper
Dimensions
40.3 × 20.1 cm (15 7/8 × 7 15/16 in.)
frame: 61.6 × 46.4 × 3.3 cm (24 1/4 × 18 1/4 × 1 5/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1948-1919
Reference Numbers
Gibbons 686
Culture
Materials
Subject
- Exhibition of drawings by old masters from the private collection of Prof. Frank Jewett Mather: International Art Center of Roerich Museum: December 18th to 31st, 1930, (New York: Roerich Museum, 1930)., cat. no. 81
- Rosanna Tozzi Pedrazzi, "Disegni di Domenico Tintoretto", Bollettino d’arte 31 (n.s. 3), no. 1 (Jul., 1937): p. 19-31., p. 21, fig. 3; pp. 22-23
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Hans Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries (New York: J.J. Augustin Publisher, 1944).
, p. 200, no. 832 - Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, with a group of sixteenth-century Venetian drawings; a loan exhibition 12 February-13 March 1960, (Toronto: Art Gallery of Toronto, 1960)., no. 13 (illus.)
- Jacob Bean, Italian drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University; 106 selected examples, (New York: October House, 1966)., no. 15
- Franco Russoli, Amedeo Modigliani: Zeichnungen und Aquarelle, (Stuttgart: Hatje, 1969)., no. 47 (illus.)
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: p. 198, no. 637 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- Joseph C. Forte, Venice-1600: Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Books, (Bronxville, NY: Sarah Lawrence College, 1979)., p. 4-5
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Anna Forlani Tempesti. "Italian Fifteenth- to Seventeenth- Century Drawings." Vol. 5 of The Robert Lehman Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991).
- Gauvin A Bailey; Sheila Barker, Hope and Healing, Paintings in Italy in a Time of Plague 1500-1800, (Worcester, MA: Worchester Art Museum, 2005)., p. 249, no. 36; p. 248 (illus.)
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 44, cat. no. 17; p. 45 (illus.); p. 46 (verso illus.); p. 257-258, app. no. 86; p. 258 (illus.)
