The Different Sides of Giuseppe Tartini: Iconography

Sources describe Tartini as a very modest and reserved man. Perhaps this is why there are only three portraits deemed authentic: a print by Carlo Calcinoto, a drawing by George Dance, and a work by a painter of the Roman school. Significant attention has been dedicated to the print that Carlo Calcinoto engraved in 1761 from a drawing by Vincenzo Rota, now lost. This is undoubtedly the most famous portrait of Tartini but also the one he despised most. In his letters to Giovanni Battista Martini, Tartini harshly criticized the circulation of Calcinoto’s print. Nonetheless, many artists copied and reworked it even in the following centuries. By analyzing these three works, I have sought to identify the facial characteristics of Giuseppe Tartini. Said analysis has made it possible to exclude several paintings and works wrongly considered portraits of Tartini in the past and to lay the foundations for examining other works as potentially unrecognized portraits of Tartini. Finally, special attention is paid to the caricatures that offer an opportunity to reflect on the success of Tartini as an iconographic subject.