Robusti, Marietta

(1560-1590)

   Marietta Robusti was the daughter of Tintoretto, who trained her as painter. As most female artists of the period, she specialized in portraiture, her skill in the field earning her an international reputation. Both Emperor Maximilian II and Philip II of Spain invited Marietta to their courts, but her father refused to let her go, instead marrying her off to Jacopo d'Augusta, the head of the Venetian's silversmiths' guild. A precondition for the marriage was that Marietta was to remain in her father's household and continue working as his assistant for the rest of his life. Four years later, Marietta died in childbirth, at the age of 30. Though Marietta attained great fame while living, the scholarship on her artistic activities is rather pitiable. The only work attributable to her with certainty is the Portrait of an Old Man and a Boy (c. 1585; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), attributed to her father until 1929 when her signature was discovered. There are also three paintings in the Madrid Prado currently assigned to her, one believed to be a self-portrait and the two others unidentified Venetian ladies. Also attributed to Marietta is the Portrait of a Woman as Flora in the Wiesbaden Museum.