The Presentation of the Ring

religious

After a phase of admiring study of Titian and Giorgione, Paris Bordone directed his attention first towards the impetuous art of Pordenone and then towards the intimistic narrative strength of the Brescians, to reach during the 1530s a brief period of equilibrium between sumptuousness of colour, inherited from Titian, and the adventurous freedom of composition learnt from the Mannerists. The universally recognized masterpiece of this period is the canvas Bordone painted in 1534 for the Hall of the Albergo in the Scuola Grande di San Marco. The subject of the picture is the second part of a legend which was very dear to Venetians.

Loading map…

About the Artist

Paris Bordone

1500 – 1571

Italian painter. He was from Treviso, but by 1518 he had settled in Venice. Vasari says he was a pupil of Titian, but found his teaching disagreeable and soon left (Titian is then said to have stolen his first commission). Whatever the truth of these stories, Bordone's work was certainly strongly influenced by Titian and also by Giorgione, 'for that master's style pleased him exceedingly' (Vasari). He painted Giorgionesque pastoral scenes and mythologies that now seem rather hard and conventional compared with their inspiration, but they won him great popularity. Commissions came from patrons all over Europe, and he visited France and Germany. His most impressive work is generally agreed to be The Presentation of the Ring of St Mark to the Doge (Accademia, Venice, c.1535), a large ceremonial composition in Titian's grand manner.

View all works →