Jacopo Bassano Portrait Paintings

Jacopo Bassano, also known as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, and took the village as his surname. Trained in the workshop of his father, Francesco the Elder, and studying under Bonifazio Veronese in Venice, he painted mostly religious paintings including landscape and genre scenes. Bassano's pictures were very popular in Venice because of their depiction of animals and nocturnal scenes. After his father died in 1539, he returned to Bassano del Grappa and permanently set up residence there, even taking a local woman, Elisabetta Merzari, as his wife in 1546. He took over the management of his family workshop, which would eventually come to include his four sons, Leandro Bassano, Francesco Bassano the Younger, Giovanni Battista da Ponte, and Girolamo da Ponte. After he died in 1592, his sons continued to produce numerous works in his style, making it difficult for later art historians to establish which pieces were created by Jacopo himself and which works were created at the hands of his progeny. Bassano was considered unique amongst his fellow Renaissance artists by his ability to incorporate diverse artistic influences (including Dürer, Parmigianino, Tintoretto, and Raphael) into his work despite his reluctance to leave the comfort of his home town. He is believed to have learned about their art by seeing their prints, of which he was most likely an avid collector.