The Eye: Tullio Lombardo

Name: Alison Luchs, Ph.D.

Occupation: Curator of early European sculpture, National Gallery of Art

Residence: Dupont Circle

The Work: Tullio Lombardo (Italian, c. 1455 – 1532); A Couple (signed), c. 1490/1495; marble

Why I love this piece: This is a pioneering work where the artist is bursting on to the scene with something completely original; a type of work that had never been seen before, in Venice or anywhere. It’s this amazingly high-relief double-portrait carved from a single block of marble. In 15th century Venice, people still weren’t commissioning portrait busts. The Florentines did, but the Venetians didn’t. To do any kind of bust there was extraordinary in the early 1490s. Then to do these semi-nude figures, who might be ancient or modern based on their clothes and hairstyles, would have been provocative and bewildering.

You can tell that the artist is really showing off. If you walk to one side of the figures, you can see that he’s carved them so free of the background that you can see all the way through to the other side behind their necks. It’s an amazing feat of carving. If you look at the man’s curls, you can see light and air through them. The woman’s hair ripples and bulges against her ribbons, as if it’s trying to break free.

He also signed the work, which sculptors in this early period did not often do. He signed it just below the man, I think to remind educated viewers that this relief was based on a type of ancient Roman double portrait for tomb monuments. But instead of the names of the subjects, it’s the name of the artist. I’ve always thought the position of that inscription is supposed to be a clue to what your eye level should be because it directs you to get down and look up at it, which makes the expressions appear even more intense and dramatic. They’re gazing off into the high distance, as though they’re seeing something far away.