_(attributed_to)_-_The_Comiciro-Comero_Family_Adoring_the_Madonna_and_Child_(detail_2)_-_1257177_-_Kingston_Lacy.jpg&width=1200)
The Comiciro/Comero Family Adoring the Madonna and Child (detail 2)
Jacopo Tintoretto·1600
Historical Context
This detail from a painting of the Comiciro or Comero family adoring the Madonna and Child is a votive painting from Tintoretto's late workshop. Such donor-and-sacred-figure compositions were standard commissions for Venetian patrician families seeking to demonstrate their piety. The Kingston Lacy votive painting represents the devotional dimension of Venetian aristocratic life, private piety expressed through images that placed the family in permanent spiritual relationship with the sacred.
Technical Analysis
The painting shows the fluid, rapid technique of Tintoretto's late workshop, with dramatic lighting and expressive brushwork characteristic of his school's production in the final decades of the 16th century.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the votive arrangement: the Comero family kneeling in devotion before the enthroned Madonna — earthly and divine presented together.
- ◆Look at the fluid, rapid technique of the late Tintoretto workshop, dramatic lighting used even for the intimate format of private devotion.
- ◆Observe the family members individually characterized within their devotional roles — specific people in the presence of the sacred.
- ◆Find the scale relationship between the small donor figures and the larger divine figures, asserting the hierarchy between human and holy.
