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Venus and Mars with Cupid and the Three Graces in a Landscape
Provenance
Don Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, Marqués del Carpio y Helice and viceroy of Naples (died 1687), by 1682/3 [his monogram, DGH / 4,67 / 1406, was painted on the reverse of the old lining canvas; the painting is no. 465 [sic] in the 1682/83 inventory of the Carpio collection, Rome, as “Un quadro che rappresenta Venere sopra un Letto, che vede Amore che ha gl’ occhi bendati, e da Lontano Le tre Gratie nude di mano di Domenicao Tintoretto”, and no. 1406 in the 1687 inventory of the same collection, taken in Naples, see Burke and Cherry 1997]; probably by descent to the Alba collection through Don Gaspar’s daughter, Doña Catalina, who in 1688 married the tenth Duke of Alba [the painting is not included in the inventories of the Alba Collection, which are incomplete; for these inventories see A. M. de Barcia, Catálogo de la colección…del…Duque de Berwick y de Alba (Madrid, 1911)]. Price collection, London, nineteenth or early twentieth century, as Jacopo Tintoretto [reference appears on the mount of a photograph of the painting in the Witt Library in London; this location and the following does not necessarily precede its presence in the H. M. Clark collection]. Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell, London, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to the Witt Library mount cited above]. H. M. Clark, London, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to registrar’s records]. D. Heinemann, Munich; sold by Heinemann to Charles H. Worcester, 1928, as Jacopo Tintoretto [according to registrar’s records]; Charles H. Worcester, Chicago, 1928–29; on loan to the Art Institute from 1928; given to the Art Institute, 1929.
Exhibition history
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1933, no. 137, as by Jacopo Tintoretto. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, June 1–November 1, 1934, no. 55, as by Jacopo Tintoretto. New York, Durlacher Brothers, A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Jacopo Robusti, il Tintoretto, 1519–1594, February 20–March 18, 1939, no. 9, as by Jacopo Tintoretto. New York, M. Knoedler and Co., Classics of the Nude, April 10–29, 1939, no. 9, as by Jacopo Tintoretto. Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpiece of the Month, May 1941, no cat., as by Jacopo Tintoretto. Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, Opening Exhibition, April 8–June 3, 1951, no cat. no., as by Jacopo Tintoretto. Chattanooga Art Association, Inc., Tennessee, Opening Exhibition of Hunter Gallery of Art, 1952, no cat. Urbana, University of Illinois, Midwest Museum Loan Exhibition, 1955, no cat. Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, England’s World of 1607, 1957, no cat. Art Institute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters: Early Italian Painting in the Art Institute of Chicago, May 29–July 31, 1993, no cat.
Publications
Art News 27, 13 (1928), p. 24, ill. Daniel Catton Rich, “Mars and Venus of Tintoretto,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 22 (1928), pp. 102–03, cover ill., detail ill. Daniel Catton Rich, “Chicago Given Worcester Art,” Art News 28, 22 (1930), p. 9. Daniel Catton Rich, “The Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Worcester Gift,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 24 (1930), p. 30. Lionello Venturi, Pitture italiane in America (Milan, 1931), pl. CCCCIX. Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection (Chicago, 1932), pp. 4, 173, ill. Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance (Oxford, 1932), p. 558 A. L. M[ayer], “Italienische Bilder in Amerika,” Pantheon 10 (1932), p. 218. Daniel Catton Rich, “Die Ausstellung ‘Fünf Jahrhunderte der Frühmalerei’ in Chicago,” Pantheon 12 (1933), p. 381. Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Illustrated Guide to the Collections (Chicago, 1935), p. 21, detail ill. Bernard Berenson, Pitture italiane del Rinascimento (Milan, 1936), p. 480. Daniel Catton Rich, Catalogue of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection of Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings (Chicago, 1938), p. 15, no. 11, pl. X. Erich von der Bercken, “Tintoretto, Jacopo,” in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart , vol. 33 (Leipzig, 1939), p. 193. Luigi Coletti, Il Tintoretto (Bergamo, 1940), p. 31. Erich von der Bercken, Die Gemälde des Jacopo Tintoretto (Munich, 1942), pp. 70, 107, no. 62, fig. 193. Regina Shoolman and Charles E. Slatkin, The Enjoyment of Art in America (Philadelphia and New York, 1942), pl. 322. Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpieces of Painting, XV and XVI Centuries in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1946), pp. 25–26, ill. Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1948), p. 26. Frederick A. Sweet, “La pittura italiana all’Art Institute di Chicago,” Le vie del mondo: Rivista mensile del Touring Club Italiano 15 (1953), p. 689. Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance (London, 1957), vol. 1, p. 171; vol. 2., pl. 1285. William E. Suida, The Samuel H. Kress Collection at the University of Arizona (Tucson, 1957), n. p., under no. 16. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 450. Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), p. 203. Carlo Bernari and Pierluigi De Vecchi, L’opera completa del Tintoretto, Classici dell’arte 36 (Milan, 1970), p. 134, 136, no. E13, ill. Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972), pp. 199, 473, 570. Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI–XVIII Century (London, 1973), p. 62, under no. K2135. Emmanuel Bénézit, “Tintoretto (Jacopo ou Giacomo Robusti dit il),” in Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays, vol. 10, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1976), p. 192. John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York, 1979), p. 262. Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del seicento, vol. 1 (Milan, 1981), p. 25. Rodolfo Pallucchini and Paola Rossi, Tintoretto: Le opere sacre e profane (Milan, 1982), vol. 1, p. 242, no. A22, p. 252, under no. A98; vol. 2, p. 635, fig. 649. Peter Bermingham, ed., University of Arizona Museum of Art: Paintings and Sculpture in the Permanent Collection (Tucson, 1983), p. 29. Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1993), pp. 234–39, ill. Marcus B. Burke and Peter Cherry, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601–1755, ed. Maria L. Gilbert (Los Angeles, 1997), pp. 786 n. 19, 828 n. 4, 829 n. 12. Mauro Lucco, La pittura nel Veneto: Il Cinquecento, vol. 3 (Milan, 1999), p. 1324. Alessandra Anselmi, “Il VII Marchese del Carpio da Roma a Napoli,” Paragone no. 683 (2007), pp. 84, 95 n. 15, 103–4, no. 11, fig. 79.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Domenico Tintoretto (Italian, 1560–1635)
- Date
- 1585–95
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 106.5 × 142.8 cm (41 7/8 × 56 1/4 in.); Framed: 142.3 × 178.8 × 9.6 cm (56 × 70 3/8 × 3 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- oil on canvas
- Style
- sixteenth century
- Place
- Italy
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
- Accession no.
- 1929.914
More by Domenico Tintoretto in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00000173
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