Marietta Robusti: the tragic fate of a female artist of the Renaissance

The story of Marietta Robusti, also known as La Tintoretta, is short, sad, embodying the all-too-familiar and often overlooked suffering of women in her time. She was the daughter of the great master of the Venetian Renaissance, Tintoretto. Marietta Robusti has gone down in history as an exceptional portraitist with a tragic fate.

It is a short story, with so few elements, and yet, with a little empathy, it twisted my gut.

Female artists during the Italian Renaissance: access to training and social constraints

The eldest daughter of the great Venetian Renaissance painter Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto, Marietta Robusti (born around 1550/60), stood out from her seven siblings with her remarkable visual memory and quick wit. Dressed in boyish attire, she accompanied her father to his workshop and the churches that had commissioned his work, a rare privilege for a young girl at the time.

Indeed, women were often excluded from workshops and academies where men trained in the arts. They usually had to learn from a father or a relative who was an artist. Moreover, they were not allowed to study anatomy through the observation of nude models, which put them at a disadvantage compared to their male counterparts.

In any case, her father taught her to paint, and she became particularly skilled in portraiture, painting many Venetians while entertaining them with music and song as they sat for her.

Let’s take a moment to imagine how thrilling and full of promise it must have been to be in such an exceptional position, with the opportunity to experience a truly fulfilling artistic journey.

She likely contributed to her father’s paintings by working on backgrounds and figure blocking, as was the common division of labour in painting workshops at the time. She also served as the subject of many of her father’s paintings.

Her contemporaries praised Marietta Robusti for her talents as a musician, playing the lute and harpsichord, as evidenced in her self-portrait, as well as her skills as a painter. A masterful colourist and an exceptional draughtswoman, she was even reportedly invited to the court of Emperor Maximilian II and Philip II of Spain. But…

Daughter and wife above all?

So, King Philip II of Spain invited her to become a court artist, a huge honour and opportunity for her career. Can you imagine how revolutionary it would have been: a woman artist, recognised and employed at court! Only a king could make such magic happen. But her father refused to let her leave Venice.

Apparently, he declined these invitations on her behalf because he could not bear to part with her. In 1578, he married her off to a jeweller, Mario Augusta. Her marriage contract explicitly stated that she must “remain under her father’s roof.” Her duties as a daughter and a wife ultimately stifled her ambitions.

Would Marietta still manage to paint here and there, to continue exploring her vocation and immense talent? Sadly, no… What could have been a remarkable artistic journey came to an abrupt end when she was barely in her thirties. Marietta Robusti died following childbirth, leaving behind the legend of a prodigy adored, and possessed, by her father.

Her tragic fate intrigued the Romantic movement painters. A painting by the romantic Léon Cogniet, created around 1843, depicts the grieving father and master, desperately attempting to paint his daughter’s lifeless body. Such a scene was also painted by Eleuterio Pagliano and Henry Nelson O’Neill.

Beyond the legend, her story perfectly illustrates the struggles faced by female artists, even those from the upper bourgeoisie, in gaining recognition in the artistic circles of the Renaissance. Such a long road… How many women, like Marietta, have seen their artistic destiny shattered by the constraints of their time? And honestly, how many are still forced to abandon their aspirations today?

What remains of Marietta Robusti

After her death, a noticeable decline in the work produced by Tintoretto was ascribed to his grief over the loss of his daughter, rather than the likelihood that he had lost his most skilled assistant.

Some landscapes and altarpieces by her father bear her mark, such as The Miracle of Saint Agnes (1577). Renowned as an excellent portraitist, Marietta Robusti may have gained recognition beyond Venice for her portraits of Marc dei Vescovi and Jacopo Strada, the antiquarian of Emperor Maximilian II. Although few documents and works have survived, she is certainly credited with a beautiful, smiling self-portrait in the style of Titian, where the young Tintoretta depicts herself next to a harpsichord, elegantly posing as a musician holding a score.

After her death, Carlo Ridolfi, her biographer, stated that she was one of the most illustrious women of her time, possessing the same skill as her father while demonstrating “sentimental femininity, a womanly grace that is strained and resolute”. It was said that while Marietta Robusti worked in her father’s studio, she also assisted with altarpieces, but her achievements were ultimately attributed to her father.

How many works, really, that were attributed to her father were actually created by her?

Where to find Marietta Robusti’s work?

Given the lack of recognition for her work, until modern times the only painting conclusively attributed to Marietta Robusti was her self-portrait, preserved at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. Portraits of women have also been identified as her work in the Contini collection in Florence and at the Prado Museum in Spain (Portrait of a Venetian Woman). Two of her drawings are also held in the Rasini collection in Milan.

However, many more of her works are surely yet to be discovered.