Venetian school; circa 1600

Venetian school; circa 1600.
"Portrait of a Knight of the Council of Ten of Venice.
Oil on panel.
It presents restorations and faults caused by xylophages.
Measurements. 112 x 82 cm.
Male portrait where the personage is facing the spectator, standing and turned slightly in three quarters, a gesture that gives certain three-dimensionality to the piece. The sitter is wearing the official clothing of the Council of Ten: a wine-coloured velvet robe of great width with a damask-like ornamentation on the inner lining. The sitter holds a glove in one of his hands, while his other hand rests on a book, indicating his high social status and his educated and learned personality. Considered to be a school that gave primacy to colour over line, the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted a great influence on the later development of Western painting. Portraiture was one of the school's favourite genres. The aesthetic and formal patterns developed from the profile of Bellini and Pisanello to the three-quarter profile pose of Antonello and the frontality of the splendour period, which began with the devotion to beauty of Giorgione and Vincenzo Catena. It was later Titian who, on the basis of the aforementioned characteristics, established a consolidated model of court portraiture.
The Council of Ten was a society established from 1310 to 1797, and was one of the main governing bodies of the Republic of Venice. Elections were held annually and the Council of Ten had the power to impose punishments on patricians. The Council of Ten had a broad jurisdictional mandate over matters of state security and together with the Collegium Plenum constituted the inner circle of oligarchic patricians who governed the Venetian Republic. Originally created as a temporary body to investigate the plot of Bajamonte Tiepolo and Marco Querini, the Council's powers became formally permanent in 1455. The Council was composed of ten patrician magistrates elected by the Grand Council for one-year terms.