Domenico Tintoretto

To be born the son of Tintoretto was to inherit one of the busiest workshops in Venice and a name almost impossible to match. Domenico Robusti, born in 1560, trained at his father Jacopo's side and worked beside him on the vast canvases for the Doge's Palace, the seat of Venice's government. When Jacopo died in 1594, Domenico took over the whole studio, running it with his brother Marco.

He made his own way chiefly as a portraitist. Courts sent for him: in 1592 he went to Ferrara to paint Margaret of Austria before she became queen of Spain, and he portrayed the doge Marino Grimani and a stream of foreign visitors to Venice, among them English aristocrats on their travels.

In his own paintings he tended to open up more room for landscape and background than his father ever had.