Conservation funded by Carter and Susan Emerson.

The artist Sebastiano Zuccato is documented in Venice between 1467 and 1527. According to Lodovico Dolce, Titian “was sent, when a child of nine years old,” from his native Pieve di Cadore to Venice “to be put under some proper master to study painting.” Once in the Lagoon, he “learned the principles of the art” at the workshop of Sebastiano Zuccato, an obscure and under-studied artist from Treviso who may well have been an acquaintance of the Vecellio family. Dolce sustains that Titian soon abandoned Zuccato and continued his training in the workshop of Gentile Bellini, then Giovanni Bellini, and finally Giorgione. Be that as it may, Titian remained on good terms with Zuccato and his sons Francesco and Valerio, two renowned mosaicists who over forty years received cartoons by Titian for a series of mosaic figures in the basilica of San Marco.

This votive panel painting of Saint Sebastian with a Donor dates to circa 1475–1485 and is the only certain work by Zuccato. The artist’s signature appears on a scroll at the base of the tree trunk (“SEBASTIANVS ZVCATVS PINXIT”), and some scholars consider the kneeling figure to be his self-portrait. It has also been suggested that the painting was an ex-voto painted by Zuccato in spiritual gratitude after Saint Sebastian saved him from the 1478 outbreak of plague. The painting shows a landscape that would suggest Zuccato’s knowledge of the work of Giovanni Bellini, whereas the pose of the saint probably derives from a prototype in Jacopo Bellini’s sketchbooks.

The painting has returned to the Quadreria of the Correr Museum on 29 April 2022. Thanks to the conservation treatment, scholars can now rediscover this extremely rare example of Zuccato’s oeuvre and may allow other works by the painter to be identified.

The entire surface of the painting was covered with a thick layer of darkened varnish that had obstructied the original details and color palette of the work. Initial inspections under UV light revealed that this oxidized varnish was more prevalent over the darker colors (particularly the black cloak), indicating that the painting was likely cleaned unevenly in a past conservation treatment. Heavy overpainting was also applied during a previous intervention, possibly to mask a large abrasion or other problem with the painted surface. These non-original surface layers were carefully thinned and removed by conservators Sara Grinzato and Giorgia Busetto, who then filled and integrated any losses to the pictorial surface with removable conservation paints before a final layer of protective varnish was applied.

Sebastiano Zuccato (1450? – 1527)
Saint Sebastian with a Donor
ca. 1475 – 1485, tempera and oil on wood
121.7 x 62.6 cm
Museo Correr

Dolce, Lodovico. Aretin: A Dialogue on Painting. London: P. Elmsley, 1770.

Joannides, Paul. Titian to 1518. The Assumption of Genius. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2001.

de Manicor, Nicole and Sara Grinzato. “Il San Sebastiano e donatore svelato: indagine all’infrarosso e restauro dell’unico dipinto noto di Sebastiano Zuccato.” Studi tizianeschi, 12 (2022): 131-147

Tagliaferro, Giorgio. Le botteghe di Tiziano. Florence: Alinari 24 Ore, 2009.