Girolamo and Cardinal Marco Corner Investing Marco, Abbot of Carrara, with His Benefice

c. 1520/1525

Shown from the hips up, a man hands a piece of paper to a young man as a third, bearded man looks on in this horizontal group portrait painting. All three have pale, peachy skin. To our right, a man wears a red cardinal’s cap, elbow-length red cape, and a white robe over a red garment, which is visible through a slit over one hip and at the cuffs. The cardinal faces our left in profile and looks straight into the distance. His blond hair curls across the nape of his neck under the cap. He has a gently bumped nose, and his thin lips are closed. He hands a folded piece of white paper to the young man to our left, who faces the cardinal, also in profile. The young man has blue eyes, chin-length red hair, pink cheeks, and paler skin than the other two. He wears a black, long-sleeved jacket with voluminous sleeves. The third man stands between the two and looks at the cardinal with gray eyes under low brows. That man has a pointed nose, slight bags under his eyes, chin-length brown hair, and a trimmed beard. The collar of a white undergarment is visible over the straight neckline of a black garment, and a forest-green cloak, lined with rust-brown, hangs over his shoulders. The two older two men stand in front of a dark green curtain and the boy in front of a landscape with green below and white clouds in the blue sky above.

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The Corner family was one of the wealthiest and most influential in Venice. The boy on the left is Marco Corner, named after his uncle, Cardinal Marco, who is shown here handing his namesake a benefice—a church appointment providing income and property in exchange for pastoral duties. Between them is the boy’s father, Girolamo, the Cardinal’s younger brother.

The painting may have been commissioned in 1519, at the time of the conferral of the benefice, but the timing of when it was executed is uncertain. The young Marco was in reality only seven years old when he received the benefice, but he is depicted here as an adolescent. His uncle’s profile is strict and expressionless. It was likely copied from a portrait medal that bears a title he received only several months before his death in 1524, meaning that the cardinal’s figure here may have been added posthumously. However, the style of Girolamo’s costume and hair would have been completely outmoded by the mid-1520s, so his likeness may be based on an earlier portrait.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Timken Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 99.8 x 132.1 cm (39 5/16 x 52 in.)
    framed: 137.8 x 170.2 x 11.6 cm (54 1/4 x 67 x 4 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1960.6.38

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century: Girolamo and Cardinal Marco Corner Investing Marco, Abbot of Carrara, with His Benefice, c. 1520/1525

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Corner (Cornaro) family, Venice; John Udny [1757-1800], British Resident in Venice; Angelica Kauffmann [1741-1807], painter, Rome;[1] probably acquired from her estate by Antonio Canova [1757-1822], sculptor, Rome; gift 1816 to William Richard Hamilton [1777-1859], London;[2] his descendants until the early twentieth century.[3] (P. and D. Colnaghi, London). (Howard Young Galleries, New York), in 1930. William R. Timken [1866-1949], New York, by 1933;[4] by inheritance to his widow, Lillian Guyer Timken [1881-1959], New York; bequest 1960 to NGA.
[1] The transfer of ownership from the Corner family to Kauffmann by way of Udny is documented by a letter of 1788 from Gavin Hamilton to the dealer G.M. Sasso in Venice. Hamilton mentions that Angelica Kauffmann (Zucchi) owned “un bel quadro di ritratti di casa Cornaro di Tiziano. Ha sofferto ed è molto ridipinto, ma è stato bello. Era di mister Udny, e facilmente è uscito da questa casa” (A beautiful portrait of members of the Corner family by Titian. It is very damaged and has been much repainted, but it has been beautiful. It formerly belonged to Mr Udny, who acquired it without difficulty from the family); see Francesca Del Torre, “Gavin Hamilton a Giovanni Maria Sasso,” in Lettere artistiche del Settecento veneziano, ed. Alessandro Bettagno and Marina Magrini, 4 vols., Vicenza, 2002-2009: 1(2002):450-451. Kauffmann herself mentions the picture in her will of 1803: “A fine painting by Titian, three half-figures, portraits of the old family Cornaro of Venice” (Victoria Manners and George Charles Williamson, Angelica Kauffman, R. A.: Her Life and Her Works, London, 1924: 244). The identification of the subject as three members of the Corner family in half-length, the attribution to Titian, and the mention of the poor condition of the picture together make it virtually certain that it is identical with the Gallery’s picture.
[2] The gift, recorded in the inscription on the back of the painting, was made following Canova’s meeting with Hamilton in Paris in 1815. Hamilton, British Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, played a leading role in forcing the French government to return many of the artistic spoils seized by Napoleon from the papal states; and in token of his gratitude, Canova presented to him not only the NGA picture, but one of his Ideal Heads (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1996.395), and a handsomely bound volume of engravings after Titian (Katherine Eustace, ed., Canova: Ideal Heads, Oxford, 1997: 30 n. 76; Giuseppe Pavanello, “La collezione di Antonio Canova: Dipinti e disegni dal Quattrocento all’Ottocento,” in Antonio Canova e il suo ambiente artístico fra Venezia, Roma e Parigi, ed. Giuseppe Pavanello, Venice, 2000: 334). Presumably Canova acquired the picture from the estate of Kauffmann, who had died in 1807 (see note 1).
[3] In common with the other gifts from Canova to Hamilton (see note 2).
[4]The painting was published in Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, Vol. 3: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Century, translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott, 3 vols., New York and Milan, 1933: 3:512, as being in the Timken collection.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1967

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, 1967-1971.

1976

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida, 1976-1978.

1981

  • Extended loan for use by Secretary Casper W. Weinberger, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., 1981-1988.

Bibliography

1929

  • Hadeln, Detlev von. “Ein Gruppenbildnis von Tizian.” Pantheon 3 (1929): 10-11.

1930

  • Heil, Walter. “A Titian Portrait Painted about 1520.” International Studio 95 (1930): 21, 88.

1933

  • Suida, Wilhelm. Tizian. Zürich and Leipzig, 1933: 78, 148.

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 3:no. 512.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 131, as Group Portrait, Attributed to Titian.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 118, repro., as Group Portrait, Attributed to Titian.

1969

  • Wethey, Harold. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. London, 1969-1975: 2(1971):170.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 203, 522, 647.

  • Lewis, Douglas. "Titian's Portraits of the Corner Family." Unpublished manuscript, 1972. NGA curatorial files.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 348, repro., as by Titian and Assistant.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:497-498; 2:pl. 350, as Attributed to Titian and Assistant.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 399, repro.

2009

  • Bodon, Giulio. Heroum imagines: La sala dei giganti a Padova. Un monumento della tradizione classica e della cultura antiquaria. Foreword by Irene Favaretto, with interventions by Elisabetta Saccomani and Carla Ravazzolo. Venice, 2009: 31-32.

2011

  • Tostmann, Oliver. "Sebastiano del Piombos Bildnis Bendinello Saulis und das Kardinalsporträt im frühen Cinquecento." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 3 (2011): 344, fig. 25.

  • Averett, Matthew Knox. "Becoming Giorgio Cornaro: Titian's 'Portrait of a Man with a Falcon'." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 4 (2011): 562, 563, fig. 2.

2013

  • Joannides, Paul. “Papers dedicated to Peter Humfrey, part I: A Portrait by Titian of Girolamo Cornaro.” Artibus et historiae 67 (2013): 247, fig. 7.

2025

  • Healy, Rachel. "Three men and an abbey:the Cornaro triple portrait." _Renaissance Studies (21 April, 2025): 1-25, fig. 1,4. https://doi.org/10.1111/rest.12989.

Wikidata ID

Q20175608

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