Bust of a Jurist (?)

Just as any Rembrandtesque painting of an old woman was once said to portray Rembrandt's mother, so Venetian portraits of bearded men often are claimed to represent Titian. This bronze bust by Cattaneo was even inscribed, perhaps during the eighteenth century, with Titian's name and the date 1540. The portrait, however, does not resemble Titian. Nor does the subject's face look anything like the fleshy features of Pietro Aretino, with whom he has also been identified, as a glance at the Frick portrait of Aretino by Titian will confirm. The unknown man may instead have been a jurist at the University of Padua, to judge from similarities to another portrait by Cattaneo of such a personage.

Cattaneo, who was reputed to have been a poet, describes his sitter with poetic economy and a masterful choice of emphases. Clearly, this jurist was an austere man of keen intellect and probity. The thatched brows cast a deep shadow over his fiercely intense eyes. The jutting nose, the slight twist of the thin lips, the tensions in the brow and the planes of his face convey a nervous energy. Even the sharply incised ripples of the stiff beard and the columnar folds of the robe contribute to the overall impression of a severe, upright character, one not easily swayed from his opinions or purposes. Like Titian in his portrait of Aretino, Cattaneo in his Bust of a Jurist conveys the subject's personality through a telling manipulation of forms, shapes, lines, and surfaces.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.