Venus and Mars with Cupid and the Three Graces in a Landscape
Domenico Tintoretto·1585–95
Historical Context
Domenico Tintoretto's Venus and Mars with Cupid and the Three Graces depicts one of the most popular mythological subjects of the Venetian Renaissance. Domenico, the son and chief assistant of the great Jacopo Tintoretto, maintained his father's workshop and continued producing the mythological and religious paintings that were in constant demand from Venetian patrons. The subject of divine love allowed the display of the sensuous color and dynamic composition that defined Venetian painting.
Technical Analysis
Domenico's oil-on-canvas technique reflects his father's dramatic compositional approach with warm Venetian coloring and dynamic figure arrangement. The rich palette and fluid brushwork demonstrate the Tintoretto workshop's mastery of the mythological painting tradition.
Provenance
Don Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, Marqués del Carpio y Helice and viceroy of Naples (died 1687), by 1682/3 [his monogram, DGH / 4,67 / 1406, was painted on the reverse of the old lining canvas; the painting is no. 465 [sic] in the 1682/83 inventory of the Carpio collection, Rome, as “Un quadro che rappresenta Venere sopra un Letto, che vede Amore che ha gl’ occhi bendati, e da Lontano Le tre Gratie nude di mano di Domenicao Tintoretto”, and no. 1406 in the 1687 inventory of the same collection, taken in Naples, see Burke and Cherry 1997]; probably by descent to the Alba collection through Don Gaspar’s daughter, Doña Catalina, who in 1688 married the tenth Duke of Alba [the painting is not included in the inventories of the Alba Collection, which are incomplete; for these inventories see A. M. de Barcia, Catálogo de la colección…del…Duque de Berwick y de Alba (Madrid, 1911)]. Price collection, London, nineteenth or early twentieth century, as Jacopo Tintoretto [reference appears on the mount of a photograph of the painting in the Witt Library in London; this location and the following does not necessarily precede its presence in the H. M. Clark collection]. Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, London, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to the Witt Library mount cited above]. H. M. Clark, London, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to registrar’s records]. D. Heinemann, Munich; sold by Heinemann to Charles H. Worcester, 1928, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to registrar’s records]; Charles H. Worcester, Chicago, 1928–29; on loan to the Art Institute from 1928; given to the Art Institute, 1929.
