The Good Samaritan

from the late 1550s

Turns to rustic subjects

From the late 1550s his work is marked by an interest in rustic subjects: drawing on pastoral paintings and prints by Titian and others, he shows shepherds and animals moving through the countryside, setting religious scenes not in Classical Roman settings but in the natural landscape around his native Bassano, where the trees and flowers are as carefully rendered as the figures.

22 July 1558

Death of his daughter Giustina

His daughter Giustina, born on 27 December 1551, dies at the age of six.

3. juni 1566

Son born: Girolamo da Ponte

1570–1592

One of the first to paint night scenes

In the final decades of his career he becomes one of the first artists to paint a “nocturne”, a picture in a nighttime landscape with artificial lighting; such paintings were extremely popular with local audiences and highly valued.