Page - 4 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Introduction4 convenient point of departure for the fuller discussion of his career which is the subject of this book. 0.2 Why are These Portraits so Special? Certainly Titian’s and Tintoretto’s portraits of the two Stradas merit a discus- sion in themselves: they are both splendid paintings, the work of two of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance. They are painters, moreover, who count among the founders of the portrait genre, and who had a tremendous influence on its later development, especially on Rubens and Van Dyck. But though that makes these paintings valuable and worthwhile as works of art, their unique significance for the history of art derives from a number of as- pects that distinguish them from many other Renaissance portraits: – The first of these is that both paintings have an exceptional place within the oeuvres of their respective painters, especially the Titian. – At least equally important is the context in which the paintings were com- missioned, which is much better known than is usual: whereas so many of the portraits of private citizens of the period are anonymous, here the identity of the sitters is undisputed. In fact we know quite a lot about them, and in particular about their activities at the time the portraits were painted. – This context is also unusual in itself: except for portraits of married couples, it is quite exceptional to have two portraits painted in conjunction, as was the case here; that they were painted simultaneously by two more or less competing rivals is probably without parallel. Finally, for both art-historians and art dealers the portraits are of particular interest, because the two sitters are in some way early examples of their own profession. Both Stradas presented themselves formally as ‘antiquarius’. In English this can be translated either as ‘antiquary’—that is someone studying the material remains of Antiquity, whom we would call an archaeologist or historian—or as ‘antiquarian’, an expert and dealer in art and antiques. In this study I hope to show that both terms are appropriate for the Stradas. 0.3 Motions of the Mind The portrait of Jacopo Strada certainly occupies an exceptional place within Titian’s oeuvre: it is one of the last—probably the very last—portrait he ever painted, and he had really stopped accepting portrait commissions much earlier. Compared with his earlier portraits, its formal qualities are unusual: whereas in general Titian’s sitters maintain a quiet, dignified attitude against