Bildnis des Prokurators Jacopo Soranzo

Jacopo Tintoretto painted this portrait around 1550 for the Procuratie, the offices of the powerful magistrates who managed Saint Mark's Basilica and much of Venice's public wealth. The sitter, Jacopo Soranzo, had been made a procurator in 1522, the office recorded in an inscription along the top edge. He wears the heavy patterned robe of his rank and turns slightly, as if caught mid-thought. The picture you see is only part of the original. It began as a broad lunette meant to fit above a doorway, and late in the century Tintoretto and his son Domenico cut and reworked it to fit the rebuilt Procuratie. A larger group portrait of Soranzo with his family survives too, now split into three pieces in Milan.