Portrait of Doge Francesco Donà

Francesco Donà was elected doge of Venice in November 1545, and Titian, who held the Republic's commission for official portraits, had started painting him before the election. The state authorised payment in May 1547. That portrait is gone. On a December night in 1577 fire went through the Doge's Palace and burned out the hall of the Great Council, taking with it the frieze of ducal portraits, work by Titian and Tintoretto among others. What is left of Titian's Donà is copies, and this canvas is one of the early good ones. Who painted it is unsettled. The Italian state catalogue gives it to Titian's workshop, while one specialist has proposed Lambert Sustris, a Netherlandish painter working in Venice in those years. The sitter, at least, the picture names itself. Across the top right it carries the inscription FRANCISCVS DONATO DVX, lettering the catalogue dates to the 16th century.