Page - 3 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

3The Image—Or from Whom (Not?) to Buy a Second-Hand Car Robert, Marquis de Strada d’Arosberg, the lineal descendant of both sitters, who had an English wife. In the Marlborough collection the Tintoretto was ac- cessible only to a restricted audience. In the Rijksmuseum, which concentrates primarily on Dutch painting, though more easily accessible, it has perhaps received less attention than it might have in the Louvre or the National Gallery, and certainly much less than it deserves. It is satisfying that this relative ne- glect has been splendidly redressed by the felicitous cleaning and restoration of the Tintoretto, and by the temporary reunion of the two portraits first in the Rijksmuseum, and then in the exhibition on Venetian Painting of the sixteenth century at the Louvre.3 Though the present study attempts to show that Jacopo Strada is a suf- ficiently interesting personality to warrant some attention in his own right, there is little doubt that his chief claim to fame remains the portrait—a fact of which he himself may have been very well aware. Certainly his later reputation has been coloured by the image projected by Titian’s masterpiece. A summary of its reception and of the image of Strada’s personality it helped foster is a 3 Rivalités à Venise, Paris, Louvre 2009–2010; cf. Bull 2009a; I am grateful to Duncan Bull and Willem de Ridder for allowing me to see Ottavio’s portrait during cleaning and for a stimulat- ing discussion of the two portraits and their relationship. Figure 0.4 Attributed to Pietro della Vecchia, after Titian, Portrait of Jacopo Strada; present location unknown. Figure 0.5 Lucas Vorsterman the Younger, engraving after Titian, Portrait of Jacopo Strada, from Theatrum artis pictoriae, Brussels 1660.