Madonna mit Kind und Heiligen

Tintoretto painted this altar-sized picture in Venice around the late 1540s, when he was still making his name against older, established masters. It gathers the Madonna and Child with several saints: Catherine of Alexandria kneeling at the front, Augustine, Mark the Evangelist, and John the Baptist with his lamb. There is a quiet oddity in it. Catherine wears clothes far grander than a saint usually gets, and scholars think Tintoretto first meant that central figure to be the Doge of Venice, Francesco Donà, as the commission required. When that portrait arrangement fell through, he seems to have painted a saint's face over the Doge's and left the splendid costume where it was.