Attributed to Jacopo Bassano

In the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, a small canvas carries Jacopo Bassano's name with a question mark after it. The label reads Jacopo da Ponte, called Jacopo Bassano, followed by that query. This is what attributed to means here. The picture is close enough to his work to be filed under him, and the museum is not sure enough to give it to him outright.

With Bassano, doubt comes easily. He worked almost all his life in Bassano del Grappa, a small town on the Venetian mainland, where his sons later joined the studio, and the family repeated its most popular subjects for buyers far beyond Venice. Workshop versions and copies of his inventions circulated widely, so a good small picture in his manner can come from more than one hand.

The Vienna canvas is The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, dated around 1555 to 1560. It was recorded in the imperial collection in Prague in 1685 and came to Vienna in 1894.