Saint Justina with the Unicorn, Venerated by a Patron

The original location and any record of commission for Saint Justina with the Unicorn are unknown; no surviving documents mention its patron or early provenance. The first surviving reference appears in a 1662 inventory recording the panel’s transfer from the Hofburg in Innsbruck to Ambras Castle, where it was then misattributed to Titian, while earlier inventories had called it a Raphael. A 1733 list reassigned the work to Pordenone, and it was not until 1845 that Carl Ransonnet correctly identified Moretto da Brescia as the artist.

Shortly after the Kunsthistorisches Museum opened in Vienna, the painting entered its collection in the late nineteenth century, where it remains. Stylistic and technical analysis supports a dating of circa 1530.

The painting is held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it was transferred in the late 19th century, soon after the museum's opening, and where it remains on display. Its original location is unknown, and no documents survive stating its provenance or commissioner.

The first surviving reference to the work is a 1662 document relating to its move from the Hofburg in Innsbruck to Ambras Castle, at which point it was already in the Holy Roman Empire's collections. That document ascribed it to Titian, while inventories immediately before the move attributed it to Raphael. A 1733 inventory re-attributed it to Pordenone. In 1845, Carl Ransonnet restored its correct attribution to Moretto da Brescia.

The painting stands as one of Moretto da Brescia's most refined works, marking the threshold between his early maturity and his full artistic maturity, with its compositional, formal, and chromatic technique consolidating his earlier experience into a personal style that would characterize his subsequent production.

Critical reception began with Carl Ransonnet in 1845, who restored the correct attribution to Moretto after the work had been variously ascribed to Titian, Raphael, and Pordenone in earlier inventories. Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle admired in 1871 the harmony of silvery colors combined with elevated, sweet modeling producing great freshness and splendor. Bernard Berenson, writing in 1907, judged the work to be among the heroic creations of Italian art, possessing an ancient grandeur and immediacy.

Roberto Longhi, by contrast, condemned in 1929 its confidential tone that brought the devotee too close to the patron saint. Adolfo Venturi, also in 1929, described the composition as a love duet at dawn, praising the luminous handling of the brocade mantle and landscape. György Gombosi, in 1943, situated the panel among the earliest Moretto works dispersed from their original context and likely acquired in Venice by the Archduke of Tyrol during the great seventeenth-century collecting fervor.

The painting is regarded as one of Moretto da Brescia's most refined works, marking the threshold between his early maturity and his full maturity. According to Italian scholarship, its compositional, formal, and chromatic technique consolidated the painter's prior experience into a personal style that would characterize his entire subsequent production, remaining substantially unchanged until his death.

Its critical reception has shaped its standing in art history. Ransonnet's 1845 identification of the work's true authorship was followed by praise from Crowe and Cavalcaselle in 1871 for its silvery harmony and luminous modeling, and by Bernard Berenson's 1907 characterization of it as among the heroic creations of Italian art, possessing an ancient grandeur. Giuseppe Fiocco in 1939 likewise observed that the work embodies a stylistic integrity that endured throughout the painter's career, while Adolfo Venturi in 1929 analyzed its atmospheric landscape and the shimmering brocade of the saint's mantle.

Roberto Longhi's 1929 critique of the painting's overly familiar treatment of the donor diverged from the prevailing admiration but reinforced its prominence in the scholarly literature on Moretto.

Executed around 1530, this oil on panel by Moretto da Brescia portrays Saint Justina of Padua alongside a donor and a unicorn. The composition is now housed in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, where it entered the collection in the late nineteenth century after the museum’s opening.