A recently completed two-year conservation project has uncovered significant changes made by Venetian artist Jacopo Tintoretto in his painting The Wise and Foolish Virgins (c. 1546). X-ray imaging revealed a stone balcony that resonates with a related painting from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, previously thought to be by Tintoretto. Experts are excited to explore the close relationship between the two artworks, which bear the same technical characteristics, and a potential reappraisal of their dating and authorship is on the horizon.
This Boijmans's painting was previously attributed to Tintoretto and has a later date of 1547-50. The precise relationship to the National Trust painting has long been unclear, however the discovery of the stone balcony in the latter work may lead to a reappraisal.
Rebecca Hellen, the National Trust's senior national conservator of paintings, says: "The close relationship between the features revealed in the Boijmans and Upton House paintings is something that we look forward to exploring with our community of experts across the globe."
Ruben Suykerbuyk, the curator of Old Masters at the Boijmans, points out that "there are no obvious differences in style or materials, and none seems to be the primary version. And as the Upton House version bears all the technical characteristics of a painting from the Tintoretto workshop, the same seems to go for our painting."
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