Susanna
Domenico Tintoretto·c. 1580s
Historical Context
Domenico Tintoretto painted this Susanna in the 1580s, treating the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders that was a favorite subject in Venetian painting for its combination of moral narrative and female beauty. Domenico was the son and studio assistant of the great Jacopo Tintoretto, and while less innovative than his father, he maintained the family workshop's prolific output. His versions of popular subjects catered to the robust Venetian art market.
Technical Analysis
The oil on canvas demonstrates the Tintoretto workshop's characteristic rapid, fluid brushwork and warm Venetian coloring. The composition balances the luminous figure of Susanna against a darker landscape setting, using the dramatic light effects inherited from Jacopo's dynamic painting style.
Provenance
Probably Senator Lorenzo Dolfin [or Delfino, 1591-1663], Venice, by 1642.[1] George Oakley Fisher [1859-1933], Egremont House, Sudbury, England.[2] (David M. Koetser Gallery, London). (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence); sold June 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] In a passage first linked to the NGA painting by Wilhelm Suida (manuscript opinion in NGA curatorial files), Tintoretto's biographer Carlo Ridolfi wrote “Il Signor Lorenzo Delfino Senator ha … sei historie del vecchio testmento collocate sopra poste [presumed to be an error for “porte,” doors]; cioè …Susana nel giardino, & i due vecchi, che spuntano di lontano da un pergolato….” (“Senator Lorenzo Delfino has. . .six scenes from the Old Testament placed above doors; namely. . .Susanna in the garden, and the two old men, emerging in the distance from a pergola. . ."); _Vita di Giacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto_, Venice, 1642: 72. The other subjects mentioned by Ridolfi as part of the ensemble were Adam and Eve, Hagar and the Angel, Lot and his Daughters, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, and Ruth and Boaz. All seem to be lost. See also: Carlo Ridolfi, _Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl’illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato_, 2 vols., Venice, 1648: 2:45; Carlo Ridolfi, _Le maraviglie dell’arte, overo Le vite de gl’illustri pittori veneti, e dello Stato_ (Venice, 1648), edited by Detlev von Hadeln, 2 vols., Berlin, 1914-1924: 2(1924):54. If the painting described by Ridolfi is, as scholars believe, the NGA painting, it appears as item 45 of page 286 in a partition document dated 26 November 1655: "Tintoretto vecchio, Susana insediata da vicchi." See: The Getty Provenance Index Databases, Archival Inventories, no. I-3348 (Dolfin); and Linda Borean, "Appunti per una storia del collezionismo a Venezia nel Seicento: la pinacoteca di Lorenzo Dolfin," _Studi Veneziani_ 38 (1999): 259-291. [2] Fisher was a book collector and antiquarian; the NGA painting does not appear in the several sales of his collection held by his executors in London in 1934 (see NGA curatorial files). [3] The bill of sale for a group of paintings, including the Tintoretto, is dated 1 June 1936 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2025.
