Exhibitions today seem to be conjured up for a wide variety of reasons, most of them irrelevant to the materials assembled with significant risk to the vulnerability of the works themselves. It was, therefore, an unexpected pleasure to find that what might have promised but slight utility as a project should, in its realization, prove not only moving and enlightening but also stimulating in affording useful comparisons and provoking reflection on a theme still only partly confronted in the literature. In the case of Jacopo Tintoretto's portraits we are now in a position to settle some of these questions due to the splendid recent exhibition held in Venice to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the artist's death.