by Jon Lackman | 23 January 2007 | Museums, Renaissance
From the Art Newspaper: “Spanish art historians have renamed one of Italy’s greatest painters. Specialists at the Prado have established that Tintoretto’s family name was Comin. This revelation will be presented at a major retrospective on Tintoretto (1519-94), which opens in Madrid on 29 January … the result of research following publication of an article in a Spanish journal two years ago, written by Fernando Checa, a former director of the Prado. Checa mentioned an unpublished letter by a 17th-century Spanish aristocrat, the Marqués del Carpio, who quoted from a previously unknown genealogy of the Tintoretto family … This discovery may make it possible to trace other archival references to the artist … The Prado says its show will be the only major Tintoretto exhibition since 1937, in Venice … The Prado show, which runs until 13 May, will comprise 60 paintings and drawings. It will be entitled ‘Jacopo Tintoretto’; using the name Comin would have been a marketing disaster.”
