Girolamo di Tiziano

The name is really a job description. Girolamo Dente was known as Girolamo di Tiziano, Girolamo of Titian, because he spent his working life as the great Venetian painter's chief assistant, taking on the parts of big commissions the master had no time to paint himself.

Born around 1510 near Ceneda, in the hills north of Venice, he grew so skilled at copying Titian's originals that a story followed him: once Titian had retouched one of Girolamo's copies, even expert eyes could no longer tell it from the master's own hand. That talent kept him busy and kept him invisible, since the finished pictures left the workshop under Titian's name.

He did put his own name to work of his own. A Venetian church held an altarpiece given to him showing Saints Cosmas and Damian, the two physician brothers, and a set of paintings of the Four Seasons survives that he signed Girolamo di Tiziano but painted entirely on his own.