Restored in 2003 with funding from Mara and Chuck Robinson in honor of Prof. W. R. Rearick.

Long considered to be a nineteenth-century copy, the Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan was restored in 2003 at the suggestion of the American Professor W. R. Rearick with the support of Save Venice. The conservation treatment revealed a work of such remarkable pictorial quality, that it is considered today to be the prototype for a series of well-known portraits of Loredan, all of which share the same compositional characteristics.

The pictorial space is dominated by the half-length figure of Loredan, whose likeness was most likely taken from the many commemorative medallions coined during his dogeship (1501–21). Carpaccio skillfully moves beyond the stiffness of conventional state portraiture, however, by animating the figure with the slightest rotation of the face, which is echoed and completed in the three-quarter view of the torso displayed to the viewer. The true protagonist of the work is the light, rendered all the more brilliant by the darkness of the room in which the doge is situated. As the light falls upon the elderly doge, the deep wrinkles in his face gain substance, his gauzy cap crinkles ever so slightly as it frames his face, and his ducal corno and mantle shimmer, offering themselves to the viewer in all their material richness. The dazzling, almost unnatural light surrounding the doge contrasts greatly with the natural light that falls upon the Venetian lagoon, where the island of San Giorgio Maggiore with its Benedictine monastery (as yet prior to Palladio’s intervention) emerges from the silent waters of the basin of San Marco. Further beyond, the belltowers of San Servolo and Sant’Antonio di Castello can be seen, defining a route towards the open sea, where two ships are moored as they wait to enter the city.

The astonishingly high degree of finish has previously led critics to attribute the work to some of the most illustrious painters of the early Renaissance in Venice, including Gentile Bellini and Vincenzo Catena. But scholars now agree that the evidence points most strongly to Vittore Carpaccio. First and foremost, the treatment of the clothing and headgear of the doge, upon which the weave of the fabrics reflect the light in infinite dots of gold, is identical to that in some of the garments worn by Ursula and her companions in the Cycle of Saint Ursula, whose restoration was completed by Save Venice in 2019. Moreover, the view of the Island of San Giorgio recalls that in the upper right portion of the Lion of Saint Mark, restored by Save Venice in 2021, and employs a similar atmospheric treatment to that of Carpaccio’s Hunting on the Lagoon at the Getty Museum.

Painted as it would be seen from within the doge’s apartments in the Palazzo Ducale, the view of the seascape in the background completes the portrait. This emphasis on the maritime dimension of Venice may well commemorate the mercantile origins of the doge, who spent his youth on galleys trading with the East and Africa. It could also reflect the naval exploits of the extended Loredan family, particularly the doge’s brother Antonio who had successfully defended the Venetian stronghold at Scutari against the siege of the Turks in 1474. Beyond that, the emphasis on the basin of San Marco, and, more generally, the open sea beyond it, might point to an ideological position of the doge, who during the Cambrai wars (1508–16) decided to set aside plans for expansion on the mainland in favor of strengthening the Stato da Mar.

Although the work was previously believed to be a nineteenth-century copy of a lost original, the conservation revealed that it was indeed produced in the early sixteenth century by Vittore Carpaccio. Layers of oxidized varnish were removed, revealing a pictorial surface of such high pictorial quality that the work is now considered to be the first in a series of portraits of Doge Loredan that are all similar in composition and format. Conservation was completed by Chiara Ceriotti of the ARKE restoration firm,

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1465–c. 1526)
Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan
c. 1501-1505, oil on wood panel
67 cm x 51 cm

Museo Correr: Homepage

Museo Correr: Link to the Work

Dorigato, Attilia. “Correr Museum Paintings Restored in Honor of Professor W. R. Rearick.” Save Venice Inc. (2004): 11-17

Bellieni, Andrea. Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan. In Venice, the Jews, and Europe, 1516-2016. Venice: Marsilio: 2016, pp. 101-104

Dorigato, Attilia. “Correr Museum Paintings Restored in Honor of Professor W.R. Rearick.” Save Venice Journal (2004): 11-17. Link to the article

Ferrara, Daniele. Carpaccio e lo spazio simbolico del bacino marciano. Il ritratto del doge Leonardo Loredan e il leone di San Marco. In Guidoni, Enrico and Ugo Soragni, eds. Lo spazio nelle città venete (1348-1509). Rome: Edizioni Kappa, 1997, pp. 203-216

Matino, Gabriele and Patricia Fortini Brown, eds. Carpaccio in Venice: A Guide. Venice: Marsilio, 2020