A Tintoretto by any other name . . .

The revelation that Tintoretto’s family name was Comin (the word means the spice “cumin” in the local dialect) is the result of research following publication of an article in a Spanish journal two years ago, written by Fernando Checa, a former director of the Prado. Checa mentioned an unpublished letter by a 17th-century Spanish aristocrat, the Marqués del Carpio, who quoted from a previously unknown genealogy of the Tintoretto family.

Prado curator Miguel Falomir (assisted by Roland Krischel) did further research, and has now established that the genealogy shows that the family’s surname was Comin and that they came from Brescia, 170km west of Venice (until now it was thought they came from Lucca). In his forthcoming exhibition catalogue, Mr Falomir confidently entitles his introductory essay “Jacopo Comin, alias Robusti, alias Tintoretto”. This discovery may make it possible to trace other archival references to the artist.

From the Art Newspaper, which also notes:

The Prado says its show will be the only major Tintoretto exhibition since 1937, in Venice. There are two reasons why no one has tackled the challenge of a retrospective in 70 years: many of the pictures are extremely large and most still hang in the buildings for which they were painted.

Nearly 90% of the artist’s paintings remain in Venice.

Indeed, I never appreciated Tintoretto until I spent an academic year in Venice; and since then, it is a rare to see a painting of his elsewhere that does not disappoint me as a pale shadow of the great works that drew me in, time and again, during that memorable year.

Posted by David on January 19, 2007 11:02 PM