Doge Alvise Mocenigo (1507–1577) Presented to the Redeemer

This unfinished sketch records one stage of Tintoretto’s preparation of a large votive painting of Doge Alvise Mocenigo destined for a room (the Sala del Collegio) in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Mocenigo ruled at the time of Venice’s great victory at sea over the Turks, the Battle at Lepanto of 1571, represented in the sketch by the ships in the background, and during the ferocious plague of 1576 (which killed the painter Titian), after which he pledged to build the great church of the Redentore designed by Palladio. In the sketch the artist mapped out the principal figures, including rudimentary ideas for the figure of Saint Mark to the left of the kneeling Doge, and painted the silhouette of the saint’s lion on a dark ground in the lower left. The beautiful figure of Christ at the left was completely rethought in the final composition. For more information about this important commission, visit metmuseum.org.