Paris Bordone

Portrait of a Gentleman in armor with two pages. Oil on canvas. between 1520 and 1571, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paris Bordone (Paris Paschalinus Bordone; 5 July 1500 – 19 January 1571) was an Italian painter of the Venetian Renaissance who, despite training with Titian, maintained a strand of Mannerist complexity and provincial vigor. thumbnail

Biography

Bordone was born in Treviso, but had moved to Venice by late adolescence. He apprenticed briefly and unhappily (according to Vasari) with Titian. Vasari may have met the elder Bordone.

Bordone's works of the 1520s include the Holy Family in Florence, Sacra Conversazione with Donor (Glasgow), and Holy Family with St. Catherine (Hermitage Museum). The St. Ambrose and a Donor (1523) is now in the Pinacoteca di Brera. In 1525–26, Bordone painted an altarpiece for the church of S. Agostino in Crema, a Madonna with St. Christopher and St George (now in the Palazzo Tadini collection at Lovere). A second altarpiece, Pentecost, is also in the Pinacoteca di Brera.

Christ as 'The Light of the World' , The National Gallery, London.

In 1534–35, he painted his large-scale masterpiece for the Scuola di San Marco a canvas of The Fisherman Presenting the Ring to Doge Gradenigo (Accademia). However, comparison between this latter painting and the near-contemporary, and structurally similar, Presentation of the Virgin reveals Bordone's limitations, his use of superior perspective which creates dwarfed distant perspectives, and limited coloration relative to the brilliant tints of Titian.

Bordone also painted smaller cabinet pieces, showing half-figures, semi-undressed men and women from mythology or religious stories in a muscular interaction despite the crowded space. He frequently combined portraiture with allegory.

Paris Bordone subsequently executed many important mural paintings in Venice, Treviso and Vicenza, all of which have perished. In 1538 he was invited to France by Francis I, at whose court he painted many portraits, though no trace of them is to be found in French collections, the two portraits at the Louvre being later acquisitions. On his return journey he also worked for the Fugger palace at Augsburg, but again the works have been lost.

Partial list of works Annunciation - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen Baptism of Christ - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Bathsheba Bathing, with an African Servant - Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Chess Players - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Daphnis and Chloe - Porczyński Gallery, Warsaw Holy Family - Bridgewater House, Westminster Madonna - Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini at Lovere Mythological picture - Galleria Borghese, Rome Mythological picture - Doria Pamphilj Gallery, Rome The paintings in Treviso Cathedral Rest on the Flight into Egypt - National Gallery of Victoria Portrait of a young woman - Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid Perseus Armed by Mercury and Minerva - Birmingham Museum of Art A Portrait of a Lady - National Gallery, London Portrait of Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio - Wawel Castle, Kraków