Giovanni Contarini

According to an old story he was so extremely accurate in his portraits that on "sending home one he had taken of Marco Dolce, his dogs began to fawn upon it, mistaking it for their master".

Contarini's work is extremely mannered, soft and sweet, but distinguished by beautiful, rich coloring and executed very much on the lines of Titian's painting.

He painted easel-pictures of Greek and Roman mythological subjects, which are treated with propriety and discretion but are peculiarly lacking in force and strength; in many of the palaces in Venice he decorated ceilings.

Some years of his life were passed at the court of the Emperor Rudolf II, with whom he was a great favorite and by whom he was knighted.

The Catholic Encyclopedia counters that one or two of his works, for example the "Resurrection" in the church of San Francesco di Paola at Venice, can claim to be masterly.