PALMA, JACOPO (c. 1480-1528), Italian painter of the Venetian school. He was born at Serinalta, near Bergamo, and is called Palma Vecchio (Old Palma), to distinguish him from his grandnephew, Palma Giovane, also a painter. He worked mostly in Venice. In his later years his fame spread abroad and he received commissions from Fontanelle near Oderzo, Zerman near Treviso and from Vicenza. He also painted altarpieces in three villages of his native Brembo valley, at Serinalta, Dossena and Peghera. Palma Vecchio appears to have formed his style after Titian and Giorgione; at a later period he was influenced by Lorenzo Lotto. His altarpiece in S. Maria Formosa is famous for the beautiful and majestic figure of St. Barbara on one of its six panels. A favourite subject of the master was "the Santa Conversazione" where the holy family with saints and donors are grouped against an idyllic landscape background, as in the museums of Naples, Vienna, Hampton Court, and in the Lichten stein collection (Vienna). The fine series of female portraits in the Vienna gallery were probably painted from 1510-20. They
represent fair young women of the courtesan type with hair flowing round their bare shoulders. The Berlin gallery and the National Gallery (the Mond collection) contain similar por traits, recalling the well-known Flora, by Titian. At the Dresden gallery is the famous "Three Sisters." Here, too, are "Jacob and Rachel" and "Venus" executed in the broad, blond manner in which he painted towards the end of his life (1520-25). Palma died in 1528 after a long period of illness. He left some 4o un completed pictures in his studio which were finished by his pupils; and this circumstance accounts for some inferior work which came into the market under his name.
See C. Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell' Arte (ed. v. Hadeln, 1914-24) ; G. Novelli, Italian Masters in German Galleries (1883) ; M. v. Boehn, Giorgione and Palma Vecchio (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1908) ; J. P.