Portrait of Agostino Barbarigo (after c. 1571): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Agostino Barbarigo (after c. 1571) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Paolo Veronese (Italian, 1528–1588).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Barbarigo served as second in command of the Venetian naval forces during the Battle of Lepanto, fighting against the Ottoman Empire on October 7, 1571. During the skirmish, Barbarigo was slain by a Turkish arrow, which he holds in the portrait. Barbarigo’s identity is defined by his military prowess. In the 1500s, Venetian military portraits often portrayed the sitter in armor in a pose typical of a Roman emperor, creating a link to the valor and might of ancient armies.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Agostino Barbarigo
• Date: after c. 1571
• Creator attribution: Paolo Veronese (Italian, 1528–1588)
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 136.2 x 136.2 x 12.1 cm (53 5/8 x 53 5/8 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 102.2 x 104.2 cm (40 1/4 x 41 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1928.16

A detail from the museum

The arrow symbolically indicates that this portrait was painted after the sitter died in battle.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. L. E. Holden, Mr. and Mrs. Guerdon S. Holden, and the L. E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "The Portrait of Ammiraglio Manfrin by Paolo Veronese: A New Accession for the Holden Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art15, no.3 (March 1928): 63-65
• Francis, Henry. "Loans to Important Exhibitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 7 (July 1939): 123
• Francis, Henry Sayles. Venetian Tradition: Catalogue of the Exhibition. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.