Doge Alvise Mocenigo (1507–1577) Presented to the Redeemer

The aged Doge Alvise Mocenigo kneels before Christ the Redeemer, who leans down from a golden glow to draw the dying ruler toward him. Jacopo Tintoretto painted this votive scene in 1577, near the end of the Doge’s life, with the flickering, urgent brushwork that made him the most dramatic painter of Renaissance Venice. The Christ figure and the kneeling Doge float against a wash of light and shadow — a state portrait, a prayer and a meditation on mortality in one.