Artwork
Summer
Summer is an oil painting by the Mannerist artist Jacopo Tintoretto. It dates from 1547 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The work functions as a personification of the season of Summer, originally conceived as part of a larger decorative cycle depicting the four seasons.
The work functions as a personification of the season of Summer, originally conceived as part of a larger decorative cycle depicting the four seasons. Historical records from 1648 describe the ensemble as including divinities in the heavens and various images representing things brought to the minds of mortals during sleep. Within this program, the seasons were positioned in the surrounding area of the room's paneling, serving as allegorical figures rather than literal landscape scenes.
While the specific attributes visible in this individual canvas are not detailed in the surviving textual descriptions, the painting's identity is firmly established by its inclusion in this group alongside known counterparts representing Spring and Autumn.
Technique & Style
The work is an oil painting on canvas, measuring 105.7 cm in height and 193 cm in width, and is classified as a painting. It depicts the personification of Summer and is part of a decorative cycle of the four Seasons attributed to Jacopo Tintoretto, originally painted for the Casa Barbo in Venice around 1546‑1548 and documented by Carlo Ridolfi in 1648. The cycle includes representations of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, with Summer being one of the four Seasons personified in the surrounding area.
The painting entered the collection of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1956, was sold in February 1957, and was gifted to the National Gallery of Art in 1961.
History & Provenance
The painting was created for the interior of Casa Barbo in Venice around 1546–1548, as documented by Carlo Ridolfi's 1648 account describing a decorative cycle of seasonal personifications in that location. It remained in the Barbo family's possession in Venice by 1648 before entering a private collection in southern France. The work was subsequently sold by Frederick Mont, Inc. in New York in 1956 and then sold in February 1957 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York.
It was gifted to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in 1961, where it remains in the collection.
The painting Summer is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Its provenance traces back to the Casa Barbo in Venice, where it was documented by 1648. Following a period in a private collection in southern France and ownership by Frederick Mont, Inc. in New York by 1956, the work was sold to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in February 1957.
It was subsequently gifted to the National Gallery of Art in 1961. The provided sources do not list specific public exhibitions for this work.
Legacy
The painting’s legacy derives from its role in a celebrated decorative cycle of the four Seasons commissioned for the Barbo family chapel in Venice, documented by Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 and later dispersed through several owners before entering the National Gallery of Art in 1961; although the full cycle was never completed, the surviving Spring, Summer and Autumn figures influenced later interpretations of seasonal allegory in European art and were reproduced in catalogues of the Kress Collection, reinforcing Tintoretto’s reputation as a master of narrative painting
Overview
Tintoretto’s oil on canvas titled Summer, dated around 1547, belongs to the Mannerist phase of the late Italian Renaissance. The work presents a reclining female figure set against a verdant landscape, under a blue sky punctuated with clouds. A parrot on a branch and two small birds in nearby foliage complete the scene, which conveys a quiet, pastoral atmosphere.
Artist & collection
Artist
Jacopo Robusti (late September or early October 1518 – 31 May 1594), best known as Tintoretto ( TIN-tə-RET-oh; Italian:; Venetian: ), was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school.
