Contarini, Giovanni

Contarini, Giovanni an eminent Venetian painter, was born in 1549, and applied himself at an early age to the study of the works of Titian. He travelled in Germany, where he met with great encouragement from the princes and nobility, especially at the court of the emperor Rudolph II. In the church Della Croce, at Venice, is a picture by this artist of The Crucifixion, and in San Francesco is The Resurrection. His principal work, however, now in the Louvre, represents the Virgin and Infant Enthroned, with St. Mark and St. Sebastian. He died in 1605. See Spooner, Biog. Hist. of the Fine Arts, s.v.; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.