page_title: Martino Rota
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Martino Rota / Work
caption_attribution_description: Description This painting, long thought to be a portrait of Rudolf II (1552-1612) by Alonso Sánchez Coello, was identified as a portrait of Rudolf's younger brother Ernst (1553-1595) in the early 1960s (G. Heinz, 'Studien zür Porträtmalerei,' p. 114). It was one of three portraits of the sons of Maximilian II painted by Martino Rota in Vienna around 1580. The portrait of Maximilian III (1558-1618) is now in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and the portrait of Rudolf II (1552-1612) is thought to be lost. DaCosta Kaufmann has described Portrait of Archduke Ernst as one of Rota's finest works and it certainly displays both the artist's talent for portraiture and his facility with the elements that make up court imagery (T. DaCosta Kauffman, op. cit., Chicago, 1988, p. 29). Indeed, Rota's training as a printmaker can be seen in his schematic treatment of fabrics and his focus on the engraved portions of Ernst's armor. The dating of the portrait to around 1580 on stylistic grounds is supported by the fact that Ernst was made regent of Inner Austria during that year and a portrait of this type would have been appropriate to commemorate his appointment. Three bust length portraits of Rudolf II, Ernst, and Maximilian III by Rota, all in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, are thought to be reduced versions of his three-quarter-length portraits.
context_page_description: Martino Rota, also Martin Rota and Martin Rota Kolunić was an artist, now mainly known for his printmaking, from Dalmatia.
  Martino Rota was born in about the year 1520 in Šibenik, Dalmatia. Little is known of Rota's early life or where he trained as an engraver, but most of his documented career was spent working in Venice, Rome, and Vienna.
context_section_description: Rota has been described as one of the most significant graphic artists of the second half of the 16th century, though few if any of his prints were original compositions.
  Chiefly an engraver of portraits, which he also painted, his drafting of the human figure is very correct, and he pays particular attention to extremities. He engraved plates entirely with the graving tool. Rota showed Durerian naturalism and a Venetian feeling for material.  Like many printmakers of the period, he combined etching and engraving on the same plates, but in an unusually sensitive manner, exploiting the differences between the two techniques.
  He also engraved paintings by masters of the Renaissance, in particular Titian, whose very important destroyed altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr is now best known from Rota's engraving;  he also made engravings after work by Michelangelo and Dürer. His known work includes more than one hundred and seventy engravings and etchings on a variety of subjects, including maps, vedutes, portraits, illustrations for pamphlets, coats of arms, and depictions of the saints. He added to the fame of Šibenik and of his compatriot Antun Vrančić, called Antonius Verantius.
  The art collector George Cumberland wrote in 1827 that 
  Rota's portrait of the Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564), pictured, may have been engraved from Deschler's medallion of 1561. Other portraits he engraved include the Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II and King Henry IV of France.
  His masterpiece is considered to be an engraving after Michelangelo's The Last Judgment.
  Rota was active until his death in 1583, leaving a small number of plates incomplete, which were completed by his pupil Anselmus de Boodt.
caption: Portrait of Archduke Ernest of Austria, oil on canvas, by Martino Rota c. 1580
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