Agostino Barbarigo

possibly 17th century

Shown from the thighs up, a pale-skinned man wearing armor and holding an arrow stands in front of a wine-red curtain drawn aside to show a cloud-streaked sky in this square painting. The man’s body is angled to our right, and he looks at us from the corners of his brown eyes. He has gray brows, flushed, high cheekbones, a straight nose, and his lips are closed under an ash-brown moustache over a long, gray beard. His gray hair is close cropped. His pewter-silver armor is lined and banded with gold, and decorated with lions’ heads at the shoulder we can see and across the tasset, spanning his hips. He holds the arrow in his left hand, to our right, so one end points toward his chest. The other hand rests by his side on a baton or hilt of a weapon. The curtain shows the edge of a column and stone banister, close behind the man’s far shoulder. Ivory-white clouds touched with pale pink are against a teal-blue sky in the right third of the painting.

Media Options

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The Venetian admiral Agostino Barbarigo was killed at the naval battle of Lepanto in October 1571, when he was shot in the left eye by a Turkish arrow. He was immediately proclaimed to be a heroic martyr who had played a central role in achieving victory for the allied Christian fleet. In a posthumous portrait of the admiral, Veronese accordingly showed him in armor, displaying the instrument of his death like a saint with an attribute.

It is easy to imagine that in the years and decades following the battle there was considerable demand among Barbarigo’s family and admirers for replicas of the portrait. This work is believed to be one of those replicas based upon stylistic differences from Veronese and an underdrawing uncharacteristic of the master. The painting was probably executed by a later follower, possibly in the 17th century.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Lewis Einstein

  • Dimensions

    overall: 102.8 x 102.4 cm (40 1/2 x 40 5/16 in.)
    framed: 125.1 x 125.4 x 8.9 cm (49 1/4 x 49 3/8 x 3 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1957.8.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century: Agostino Barbarigo, possibly 17th century

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Henry Doetsch [1839-1894], London; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 22 and 24-25 June 1895, no. 43, as by Tintoretto); David L. Einstein [1839-1909], London;[1] his son, Lewis D. Einstein [1877-1967]; gift 1957 to NGA.
[1] Ellis Waterhouse supplied the information about the elder Einstein's purchase of the painting at the Doetsch sale in a note dated 22 July 1980, in NGA curatorial files. A red wax seal on the reverse of the painting has not yet been identified; the seal has an unmarked shield surmounted with the profile head of an antlered deer and to the left of the shield, the impressed numbers "129."

Associated Names

Bibliography

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 136, as School of Veronese.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 123, repro., as School of Veronese.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 40, 510, 647.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 364, repro., as School of Veronese.

1976

  • Pignatti, Terisio. Veronese. 2 vols. Venice, 1976: 1:135.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:531; 2:pl. 369, as Veronese Studio.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 424, repro.

1988

  • Rearick, W. R. The Art of Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Cambridge, 1988: 108.

1991

  • Pignatti, Terisio, and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese: Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991: 92.

1995

  • Pignatti, Terisio, and Filippo Pedrocco. Veronese. 2 vols. Milan, 1995: 1:284.

2008

  • Garton, John. Grace and Grandeur: The Portraiture of Paolo Veronese. London and Turnhout, 2008: 99, 204.

2009

  • Ilchman, Frederick, et al. Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Musée du Louvre, Paris. Boston, 2009: 284 n. 72.

Wikidata ID

Q20175932

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