Titian`s Later Mythologies

Transcription

Titian's Later Mythologies
Author(s): W. R. Rearick
Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 17, No. 33 (1996), pp. 23-67
Published by: IRSA s.c.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483551 .
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W.R. REARICK
Titian'sLaterMythologies
I
Seen together, Titian's two majorcycles of paintingsof mythological subjects stand apart as one of the most significantand seminal creations of the ItalianRenaissance. And yet, neither his earlier cycle nor the later series is without lingering problems that
continue to cloud their image as projected today by scholars and
connoisseurs.1
When GiovanniBellinisent his Feast of the Gods (Washington,
NationalGalleryof Art)to Ferrarain 1514 he clearly had no intention of undertakinganother mythologicaltheme for Alfonso d'Este.2
The Feast had been undertakenonly reluctantlyand had occupied
him since 1509; in the last two years of his life he would have been
only more resistantto the undertakingof such a demanding project.
And yet, Alfonso had expected an ensemble of paintingsand sculpture intendedto rivalthat of his sister Isabellad'Este in Mantua.He
decided, as indeed Isabella had decided earlierwhen Mantegna left
the thirdof his mythologies unfinished,to distributefuture commissions among several artists. Dosso Dossi was called in to contribute
one canvas, Fra Bartolommeo was assigned one, and even
Raphael was commissioned to add two episodes, works destined to
remain unrealized.3It was, however,a still younger painterwho was
called upon to bring the studiolo to completion. Titian painted the
Worshipof Venus (Madrid,Museo del Prado) in 1518-1519 when
the great Assunta (Venice, Frari)was complete and in place. This
was followed directlyby the Andrians (Madrid,Museo del Prado),
and, after an interval, by the Bacchus and Ariadne (London,
National Gallery) of 1522-1523.4 The sumptuous sensuality and
dynamic pictorial energy of these pictures dominated Bellini's
restrained Feastto such a degree that Titianwas, as a last gesture,
asked to overpaintpart of its backgroundlandscape with a vision of
wild nature that was more to the modem taste.5The camerino d'alabastro d Alfonso d'Este was destined to remain intact until 1598
when the pictures were transferredto Rome. Even after their dispersal, the d'Este mythologieswould stand as an unparalleledparadigm for all artists who undertooksuch themes, most prominently
Poussin and Rubens.
So radiantis the example of Titian's Ferrara mythologies that
one is suprised to discover that Titianonly rarely underook themes
based on classical legend during the followingtwenty years. The
unique large scale canvas, the Jupiter and Antiope, called the
Pardo Venus (Paris, Musee du Louvre)was destined for a long gestation, its composition partly adumbratedaround 1512 only to be
repeatedlyrevised and reworkedup to just before 1564 when Titian
sent it to PhilipII to join the already abundantlater suite of mythological picturesthat will be the subject of this study.6
23
W. R. REARICK
II.
Philip II remained in his father's shadow as a patronof Titian
until the aging emperor's retirementto San Yuste in 1555. A few
years before the artist had depicted the future king of Spain in the
guise of an organist,who serenades the recumbantVenus (Berlin,
Staatliche Museen, Gemaldegalerie), in a mysterious picture that
clearly never reached Spain-if, indeed, it was a royal commission.7 Althoughit is thought that such a project was broached by
Philipto Titianduringtheir 1551 meeting in Augsburg, it was probably in 1553 that Philip actually began to order mythologicalsubjects from Titian.Even then it was evidentlynot with the idea that
they would form a coherant cycle to be exhibitedtogether in a setting recallingthat of Alfonso d'Este's studiolo. Instead,at the beginning the artist seems to have thought of each as an independent
work that might, if convienent, be hung in juxtapositionwith preceeding mythological subjects.8 Thus, he began seriously to think
about mythologicalpicturesonly with the commission for the Danae
(Madrid,Museo del Prado), a paintingalready undertakenwhen the
artistwrote to Philipon 23 March 1553, and which was shipped to
Spain the following year.9 A variant of the Danae (Naples,
Capodimonte)that he had paintedfor OttavioFamese in Rome during 1545-1546, the 1553 painting is a size (128 x 176 cm) and
a shape (wide horizontal) that sets it apart from all the other
mythologies that would follow.10And yet, his correspondance clearly indicatesthat Titiantook careful account of how these successive
pictures would fit together.
The situtationwas, however, simultaneouslyin a state of flux,
and another mythologywas in progress that seems clearly to have
established the patter that would be followed in subsequent canvases. Since Titian specificallywrites that the Venus and Adonis
was conceived as a pendantto the Danae, a composition in which
the nude female form would be seen from the back ratherthan the
front as in the preceeding canvas, it is clear that a uniformformat
and the possible additionof furtherpaintingswas not yet a fixed
objective.11Nor was there an integratediconographicalprogramin
1554. Instead, each successive canvas would be loosely, sometimes quite freely, based on Ovid'sMetamorphoses and no interrelation except for compositional balances was ever intended12.
Nonetheless, the Venus and Adonis would soon become the starting pointfor what was destined to be Titian's second great cycle of
mythological pictures.
We do not know precisely when Philip commissioned the
Venus and Adonis; indeed, as was sometimes the case, Titianmay
have undertakenit on his own initiativeon the assumptionthat if it
were well received it would be well compensated. The artist's letter
to Philipdescribes the Venus and Adonis as potentiallyto be hung
together with the Danae that had already been dispatched, and in
a simultaneous letter, dated 10 September 1554, to the king's agent
24
Juan de Benevides he reportedthat the canvas was ready for shipment.13In the meantime, Philiphad made the politicallyportentious
move of contractingmarriagewith Queen MaryTudor of England.
Thus it was that the destination of the Venus and Adonis was
Londonand not Spain or the Netherlands.Its voyage to Englandin
the autumn of 1554 was not withoutmishap.
On 6 December Philip wrote an angry letter to Francesco
Vargas, his agent in Venice, in which he praises ("...me paresce de
la perficion...') the Venus and Adonis, apparentlyjust unpacked in
London, but adds the complaintthat the canvas had been folded
horizontallyin packing ("...maltratado de un doblez que haya al
traues por medio del, el qual se deuio hazer al cogelle, verse ha el
remedio que tiene los otros quadros que me haze le dad prissa che
los acabe y no me los embieis sino auisadme quando estimieren
hechos para que yo os mande lo que se haura de hazer dellos.").
One may reasonablyassume that the paintinghad been folded horizontallynear its center and that this resulted in paint loss along
a strip that would have intersected Venus' head just above the
shoulder.14The damage was such that the king's ire requiredaussuaging, but the common criticalassumptionthat the canvas now in
the Museo del Prado in Madrid[Fig. 1] is the damaged original
requiresthat we conclude that Titianhimself made no move to correct the problemand that the Prado paintingis the picturedescribed
in the king's letter.All the evidence points, however,to a more complex sequence of events, one supportedby the fact that the Madrid
editionis recordedfor the firsttime only in 1626 when Cassiano dal
Pozzo's journaldescribed it as hanging next to the Perseus and
Andromeda in the Alcazar.15
Always recognizedas an epochal work in Titian's development,
the Venus and Adonis has been subjected to a characteristic critical abstractionin which the Prado paintingis rankedhigh as Titian's
originaland the numerous related pictures are graded in descending qualitativeorder as productsof his shop or worse. Thus, a variant [London, National Gallery.Fig. 2] now passes as entirelystudio
work, while another [Malibu,J. Paul Getty Museum. Fig. 3] has
recently been upgraded from workshop to the status of an autograph paintingin which the shop participated.The closely related
version [Lausanne, private collection. Fig. 4], however, has not
been available for critical evaluation for seventy years and has,
therefore, remained largely ignored or, worse, categorized as
a modest atelier reproductionof later date. Two smaller pictures of
this subject [Washington,NationalGalleryof Art.Fig. 5; New York,
MetropolitanMuseum of Art. Fig. 6] have generally been stigmatized as still later revisionsin which the shop played a predominant
role. Thus, the art historical compulsion to establish an orderly
heirarchyamong the many versions of Titian's Venus and Adonis
seems to have been satisfied, and the records on their historymight
well have remained a closed chapter.
TITIAN'SLATERMYTHOLOGIES
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1) Titian. ((Venus and Adonis). Madrid, Museo del Prado.
25
W. R. REARICK
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2) Titian workshop. <Venus and Adonism. London, National Gallery.
26
3) Titian and workshop.
<Venusand Adonis,. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum.
Here, we encounterthe first in a series of disquieting inconsistancies between that reportof the damage to the Venus and Adonis
and the paintingnow hanging in the Prado, a work that has always
been assumed to be the same canvas.16 The Prado picture has,
indeed, a visible crease runningthroughthe width of the canvas at
the level of Venus's neck, but this is, in fact, a seam where two
lengths of canvas were sewn together before the painting was
begun.17Whileit is true that if the 1554 Venus and Adonis had been
folded it is probable that the weakest point along the seam would
have given least resistance to such pressure, a close examination
27
W. R. REARICK
4) Titian. <<Venusand Adonis,. Lausanne, private collection.
28
5) Titian and workshop. <<Venusand Adonis,. Washington, National Gallery of Art.
of the Prado canvas does not show any significantpaint loss along
this seam nor is there any physical evidence that it was ever actually folded at that point.18In fact, this seam in the Prado canvas is
not exactly at the half-waypoint of its overall height, its positionhad
the picture been folded precisely in half, but is instead about 102
cm. fromthe bottomedge and a mere 85 cm. from the top margin.19
This seam undulates visibly, followingthe sewn conjunctionof the
two canvases. This would not correspondwith a straight horizontal
break that would have resulted from folding the finished canvas. In
short, the paintingthat first appeared in a document of 1626 presents no evidence of folding damage that might have provokedthe
king's dissatisfaction.More disquietingis the undercurrentof lack of
29
W. R. REARICK
6) OrazioVecellio. "Venusand Adonis,. New York,MetropolitanMuseumof Art.
enthusiasmfor the Pradopicturein the criticalliterature.
Although
every scholar recognizesthe importanceof this compositionas
a crucialdevelopmentin Titian'sart, none resporxJsto its pictorial
qualitywiththe enthusiasmand awe that marktheirwritingsabout
30
the mythological
paintingsthat followit. Theirpraiseis directedto
evaluationof its pictorialquality,
its compositionwitha perfunctory
boredby the PradoVenusand Adonis.20
and some are downright
The primacyof the Prado Venus and Adonis is still furthereroded by an importantpiece of contemporaryevidence, the engraving
of this subject by Giulio Sanuto [Fig. 7]. As Bury has pointed out,
this engraving relates more closely to the Lausanne composition
than to the other versions of the Venus and Adonis,21but the relationshipof Titianto engravers is complex and should be considered
before we suggest conclusions on the basis of Sanuto's engraving.
Earlierin his career Trtianseems to have favored woodcuttersover
engravers in the reproductionof his compositions22. Even there,
however, the artist'srole in their productionwas variable.For a few
woodcuts such as the Saint Jerome, cut around 1515 by Ugo da
Carpi and inscribed TICIANUS, the cutter followed attentively
a complete, but small scale drawing by Titian,23and for the Six
Saints Vasari reportedthat the artist had drawn the design directly
onto the woodblock.24In the majorityof cases, however, the master providedan aggregationof pen sketches which the cutter transferred and assembled for the finished product.25When, during or
just after 1537, Titian allowed Jacopo Caraglio to engrave his
Annunciation, the graphic artist seems to have had the finished
painting before him. This, however, was rare, and later, when
engravings began to replace woodcuts in the reproductiverole after
Titian's inventions, another process became standard. Here one
should alltnuptto reconstructTitian's workingrelationshipwith such
engravers and their publishers. Rarely did a printmakerhave the
opportunityto engrave his plate directlyfrom Titian's originalpainting. Instead, taking the contemporaryGloriaas an example, Titian
shipped the large canvas to Charles V shortlybefore October 1554,
but it was only in about 1565 that Comelis Cort entered into an
agreement with T'tianto reproduceit.LTtianhimself refers in a letter
of 15 June 1567 to the fact that he had made availablea drawing
as the model for Cort'sengraving.That drawingmight be the sheet
(Paris, Musee du Louvre, Departementdes Arts Graphiques) that
has often been identifiedas Titian's own study for the painting.26
Instead, it is neitherpreparatoryto the picturenor by Titian himself;
the Louvresheet is based on Titian's preparatorysketches, but with
modificationsand additions where no autograph study was to be
found in the studio. Titian himself was not the draftsmanhere, but
rather assigned the project to his son Orazio, who executed the
model drawing in a careful, but lifeless pen style. It provided
a source which was then extensively overdrawnin pen by Cort himself with the intentionof clarifyingpassages that remained tentative.
The printbears the date 1566, more than a decade after the picture
had departed for Spain. On the unique occasion in which Titian
seemingly prepared a drawing expressly for Cort without reference
to a painting,the Roger and Angelica of 1565, the sheet (Bayonne,
Musee Bonnat)is handled in a tightlydisciplinedway quite different
from the artist's more spontaneous sketches for his paintings, but
nonetheless energetic and definitivein ways that the Gloriadrawing
is not.
,.
r
7) Giulio Sanuto, engraving after Titian. <<Venusand Adonis>.
Vienna, Albertina.
In the case of the Sanuto engravingof the Venus and Adonis
we know almost precisely when, where, and by whom it was made
by the inscription:Di Venetia, il di, XXI,di Settembre M. D. L. VIIIl./
Giulio Sanuto. Although Bury concluded that this print was made
from a drawing that corresponds with the details of the Lausanne
picture,the relationshipis rathermore complex. The single element
that appears exclusively in the Lausanne compositionand would be
eliminatedfrom all subsequent replicas or variants is the white dove
that nestles quietlynext to Cupid'sfoot This symbol of love seems,
like the god himself,to sleep unconcious of the imminentperil represented by Adonis's departurefor the fatal hunt. In the smaller,
later repetitionsthe awake and frightenedCupid grasps a fluttering
31
W. R. REARICK
8) Orazio Vecellio. ?Venus? (drawing). Milan, private collection.
dove, but nowhere except in Sanuto's printandcengravings derived
from it, is the first Lausanne idea reproduced.Although many other
details of the printclosely follow that painting,there are significant
differencesas well: the draperyand head of Adonis is very close, as
is the bow and qiver, but not its ribbon;the buskin is similar,but
lacks the prominent mascherone; and the celestial radience and
landscape follow that model, but omit the death scene. Thus, we
must assume that either Sanuto was inattentiveto such particulars
or that other source materials intervened.The latter is more likely.
Following our theory that in most instances Titian delegated to
Orazio the task of utilizingshop materials to be assembled into
a finished, model pen drawing,we might conclude that here as well
32
drawings by the master provided Orazio with a source for a fullscale drawing. In this light, it might be useful to introducea sheet
[Milan,private collection. Fig. 8]27that has heretofore escaped critical attention.It represents the figure of Venus seen from the back
and is closest in detail to the Lausanne painting and the Sanuto
print.The summary way in which elements around the figure are
alludedto but not described as well as the accomodationof Venus's
foot to the size of the sheet indicatesthat it is not a preliminaryfigure study where only Venus would have been the artist's concem,
but that it is, rather,after the painting.The line-workis not based
directlyon that of Sanuto's engraving. Its style is dearly reflectiveof
that of Titian,but a certain timidityand approximategrasp of anatomy do not encourage an attributionto the master himself. Instead,
it is marked by graphic idiosincraciesclose to the decorative squiggles evident in Orazio's own Crucifix(Berlin, Staatliche Museen,
Kupferstichkabinett)of 1559, precisely the year of the Sanuto
engraving. The Crucifix was drawn after Orazio's own painting
(Escorial,apartmentsof PhilipII)as a model for the engraver Giulio
Bonasone, who, like Cort a few years later, drew correctionsdirectly onto the Berlinsheet. I would suggest, therefore,that the Milan
drawing of Venus is part of Orazio's organization of material in
preparationfor a finished model drawingto be placed at Sanuto's
use for the engraving.Its broad fidelityto the Lausanne paintingand
the inclusionof the dove in the printstronglysuggests that not only
drawings were available to Sanuto, but that the Lausanne version
of the Venus and Adonis was in Titian's studio and was studied by
the engraver shortly before 1559. Indeed, the conjunctionof graphic style developed from drawings and the motivaldetails based on
the painting strongly suggest that both formed part of Sanuto's
workingsources. A few passages are closer to the Londontype, but
nothing is clearly reproducedfrom either the Madridor Malibuversions. The extension above to create a verticalformat is simply the
invention of the engraver, who was requiredfor commercial purposes to produce a vertical image. Prints after the later Diana and
Callisto follow the same procedure. One final point regardingthe
Sanuto engraving: the long inscriptionon the tabella at top right
states explicitlythat the printwas made after the very paintingthat
Titianhad sent to King Philip11.28Since that originalhad aparently
been retured to the master and its replacement long since dispatched to Spain in 1559, this must refer to the Lausanne canvas.
MartinoRota was the engraver and publisherof an engraving of
Venus and Adonis that seems to follow much the same scheme as
Sanuto's image incuding the dove, but with departuressuch as the
elaboratedManiera,sky that probablyhas no source in Titian. Many
details such as the faces are crudely abstracted and also depart
fromany Titianmodel. Therefore,it is probablethat Rota's printwas
carriedout withoutTitian's directcollaboration,and that it made free
use of Sanuto's prototype.Its date might even fall withinthe span
after 1568 when Rota was active in Vienna and Prague at the court
LATERMYTHOLOGIES
TITIAN'S
thathe had seen the Titian
of RudolphII.Thisopens the possibility
original(forwhichsee the discussionof its provenancebelow),but
not the Malibureplicathat is less preciselyrelatedin detail.A certain NicoloNelliand Hans Collaertseem also to have plagiarized
both Sanuto'sand Rota'sprints,but theirrelativedates are purely
to locatein this contextis an engraving
speculative.29Mostdifficult
This engraveris
attributed
by CatelliIsola to GiacomoCaraglio.30
knownto have workedwithTitianonly in the years 1536-1537 in
and his departurefor Polandin July,
the Annunciation
reproducing
of a compositionfor1539,tendsto rulehimout fora reproduction
mulatedonly in 1554, unless a versionof the paintingreachedhim
in Crakowpriorto his deathin 1565, an unlikelyprospectsince no
versionof the pictureis knownto have migratedthere.This print,
thanany
however,is moredirectlybased on the Pradocomposition
the uncoveredshoulderand classical
other version, in particular
headof Adonisand the antiquarian
quiverthat only appearsthere.
This suggests a close contactwiththe artisthimselfand with his
to Caragliointo doubt.Its handrawingsand casts the attribution
too
coarse
for Caraglio.It mightbetterbe
the
seems
of
burin
dling
ascribedto an unknownVenetianengraverworkingwiththe artist
around1554, a momentwhen the Pradoreplicamightstill have
been in the studio,and beforeany of the otherknownprintmakers
the VenusandAdonis.Thus, althoughmanyquestions
reproduced
surroundingthe engravingsafter the Venus and Adonis remain
unanswered,it is safe to say that all except this last are to some
degree based on Titianshop drawingsor on each otheror on the
Lausannepaintingwhich,because of the uniquedove, is unquestionablyrelatedto Sanuto's1559 printand to the engravingsthat
are derivedfromit.
This lengthyexcursuson the problemof Titianand the Sanuto
engravingof the Venusand Adonisserves to pointup some of the
about
thatpervadesthe recentliterature
reasonsfor the uncertainty
this composition,especiallydue to the seldom acknowledgedfact
thatthe key piece in the puzzle,the Lausannepainting,had been
availableto scholarsto a limiteddegreepriorto 1930 and not at all
since then.31This impasse now seems about to be resolvedby
a recentdevelopment.A letterfroma privatecollectorin Lausanne
reachedme in Veniceon 20 June, 1995, in whichhe requestedmy
opinion about a paintingattributedto Titian that he owned.
eager collectors
Resignedto the drearynecessityof disappointing
seized by the hope thattheircanvasmightbe a great masterpiece,
To my
I openedwarilythe envelopecontaininga colorphotograph.
astonishmentit reproduceda paintingof dazzlingbeauty,at once
evidentlyan autographwork by Titianhimself.32Later,after an
extended examinationof the original,I undertookto explorethe
work.The firstaspect that seemed
of this remarkable
background
to corroboratemy impressionof its importancewas its proveAs is so frequently
nance.33This,as well,was to provecomplicated.
the case with early lists, pictureswere recordedwith merelythe
and the name of the artist
subject (occasionallymisinterpreted)
(oftenoptimistic)but seldom with detaileddescriptionsand measurements.Therefore,cinquecentoand earlierseicento notices of
paintingsby TitiandepictingVenusandAdonismightbe associated
with a version of this subject other than the Lausannecanvas.
Therefore,the earlierphase of this painting'sprovenancemust be
An inventorymade ca. 1598 for Emperor
taken as hypothetical.
anda 1621
RudolfIIin Praguelists"VenusundAdonisvomTitian",
Neither
Praguelistcalledit "VenusundAdonisvomTitiano.Orig."34
includesa detaileddescriptionnor measurementsso we cannotbe
sure thatwe are dealingwiththe presentpictureand notwithanother versionof it. The du Fresne inventoryof paintingsbelongingto
of Swedenlistsundernumber115:"Dito.ou Josup
QueenChristina
est
ala
chasse, et une femmequi le tient,sur un fonds de la
(sic)
toile,"as havingbeen acquiredat the sack of Prague.This is clearly a referenceto the Swedishvictoryof 1648 in whichmanymajor
pictures from the Hapsburghcollection were carried off to
Stockholmas booty.35
Althoughno artistsare namedfor any of the
du Fresne registry,it is probablethat he mistookthe reluctant
AdonisforJoseph,who neverwent hunting,and Venusforthe profligatewife of Potifer,who did. Since laterSwedishinventorieslist
more than one canvas depictingVenusand Adonisit cannotbe
ascertainedif thatwas the Lausannepictureor another.Thereafter
it appearsin several lists of Christina's
pictures,but only in 1662
witha more detaileddescription,includingthe specificationthat it
includedthree huntingdogs, and measured8 palmie mezzo in
heightand 9 palmiin width.These dimensionscorrespondclosely
with those of the Lausannecanvas which may be translatedas
measuring8 palmiin heightand 9 palmiinwidth,but here it should
be recordedthatthe queenownedmorethanone versionof Titian's
Venusand Adonis.36Finally,the 1721 Odescalchi-Erba
inventory
describestwo picturesof Venusand Adonisas probablycoming
from Christina'scollection.One had a carvedframeand the other
a smooth,gilt frame.It is this latterthat almostcertainlymay be
withthe Lausannepicturesince it is specifiedas having
identified
the earlyinventories.
this framethroughout
Subsequentlists of the
collectionas it passed fromone Odescalchigenerationto another
An
in regardthe the pictures'sizes.37
betraya casual approximation
attentivereadingof the evidencemakes it clearthatthe one in the
as the canvas now in the J. Paul
carvedframeis to be identified
GettyMuseumin Malibuand thatthe one in the smooth,giltframe
is at presentin Lausanne.Althoughher earlierinventoriesnoted
only one originalVenusand Adoniswiththree dogs the existance
of two in the last Odescalchiaccountingsuggests that Christina
broughtbothwithher when she abdicatedand movedto Rometo
of the pictake up residencein PalazzoRiario.The 1662 inventory
ture galleryin PalazzoRiariorecords:"Adonein atto di partiralla
caccia con trecani alla manotrattenutoda Venereche I'abbraccia
ignudae seduta in schiena sopra una veste de velluto.Unbellissi33
W. R. REARICK
mo paese con un amore adormentato sotto gli alberi, figure grandi
al naturale, con cornice liscia indorata, alta palmi otto e mezzo e
larga palmi nove." It was so described in the list drawn up on the
queen's death in 1689 but with its size given as "altapalmi sei e
mezzo e larga palmi otto."38It passed after her death to her heir
CardinalAzzoliniin the Palazzo Odescalchi, then to his nephew the
Marchese Azzolini,in tur to PrincipeLivioOdescalchi where it was
listed in the inventoriesof ca. 1690, 1692, and that of 1713 made
on his death. It passed to Principe Baldassare Odescalchi-Erba
where it remained until 1721 when it was purchased together with
the entire lot of Christina'spictures by PhilippeDuc d'Orleans.Here
the list of Christina'spaintings includes two versions of theVenus
and Adonis with three dogs and one with two, but since the
Odescalchiseem not to have added to the queen's galleryit is probable that all three share this provinence.
Philippe's heirs Louis Duc d'Orleans and then Philippe
kept the galleryat the Palais Royal in Paris.39This last, in
"Egalit6",
sold
two hundredand ninetyfive French and Italianpicturesto
turn,
Edouard Walkiersin 1791, who passed the pictures en bloc on to
M. Labordede Merevillewho shipped them to Londonin July, 1792,
where they were consigned to Jeremiah Harman.It was at this point
that BenjaminWest made a fruitless effortto persuade WilliamPitt
to acquire them for the crown with the Royal Academy their proposed destination. When this failed, Harman made them over to
a consortiumcomposed of the Duke of Bridgewater,Lord Carlisle,
and Lord Gower, eminent English collectors who kept some pictures, exhibitingthe remainderfor sale at the Lyceum in London
beginning in December, 1798. At that time, the Venus and Adonis
with the carved frame was sold to LordFitzhughfor ? 300 and later
passed through the Lords Normantoncollection from which it was
sold at Christie's of London on 13 December, 1991, to Hazlitt,
Gooden, and Fox who acted on behalf of the J. Paul Getty Museum
in Malibuwhere the picturearrivedin 1992. The Venus and Adonis
in the smooth, gilt frame was presented, amost certainlyin 1798, by
the Duke of Bridgewaterto the painterand President of the Royal
Academy, Benjamin West, presumably as compensation for that
connoisseur's evaluation of the remainder of the collection.40
Apparentlyin need of funds, West sold it to RichardHartDavis for
the substantialfigure of 4,000 guineas in 1809. Davis, an MP from
Bristol,in turn, sold it with his entire collectionto John PhilipMiles,
another MP whose countryseat, Leigh Court,was near Bristoland
in Londonfor their 1822 old maswho lent it to the BritishInstitution
ter exhibition.There it was engraved with a label indicatingTitian's
authorship,the BenjaminWest provenance, the measurement of 70
x 80 inches, and Miles'sownershipat Leigh Court.41Sir Cecil Miles,
who had inheritedthe painting,sold it at auction at Christie'son 13
May 1899, when it was boughtfor only ? 420 by Molyneuxwho perhaps acted on behalf of Max von Heyl on the recommendationof
Franz von Lenbach sometime before the latter'sdeath in 1904. Heyl
34
died in 1925 and in 1930 it was auctionedon 28/29 Octoberat the
Hugo HelbingGalleryin Munichand was acquiredby Carl Beuming
of Darmstadt for 65.000 marks. In 1941 it passed to the Philip
Reemstma collection and in January,1984,throughthe dealer Kratz
to its present location.Therefore,we may conclude that the present
Venus and Adonis probablyonce belonged to the Hapsburghpicture galleryin Prague as a workof Titianand that its historymay be
traced securely from the collections of Queen Christinaof Sweden,
the Duc d'Orleans,BenjaminWest, and by unbrokenprovenanceto
its present owner.
If our Venus and Adonis is the picture looted from Prague in
1648, we are left with an hiatus of sixty-fouryears fromthe time that
the firstversion arrivedin Londonin 1554. Here, we find Panofsky's
theory about its inspirationfor Shakespeare challenging.42The bard
was bom in 1564 and wrote his early poem 'Venus and Adonis"just
before 1593 with a dedicationto his new patron Henry Wriothsley.
To be sure, the poem emphasizes the very moment when the reluctant youth seems to flee from Venus's embrace in order to lead his
dogs on the chace for the fierce boar-an episode missing from
Ovid and other classical sources. Furthermore,Shakespeare's evident sensual pleasure in his erotic descriptionof the beautifullovers
seems to be inspired by the tactile splendor of Titian's painting.
Does this confirm Panofsky's circumstantialclaim that the original
Venus and Adonis remained in Englandfor at least fortyyears after
its arrivalin 1554? I thinknot. The explanationlies in the miniature
copy of this theme paintedby Peter Oliverin 1631 (BurghleyHouse,
Stamford, The Burghley House Collections).43This documentary
work is taken faithfully,only departingin the positionof the distant
dog's head, from a pictureof a second type in which there appear
only two dogs. KingCharles I owned anotherversion, now lost, also
ascribed to Peter Oliver.Still another picturein this format(Vienna,
KunsthistorischesMuseum) was destroyed duringWorldWar II.We
would conclude, therefore, that Shakespeare was indeed inspired
by Titian's Venus and Adonis, but that it was the latertype with two
dogs of which the best survivingversion is in the NationalGalleryof
Art, Washington,that he knew and that was Peter Oliver's 1631
model for the BurghleyHouse and perhaps other English copies.44
Where, then, was the Lausanne Venus and Adonis between 1554
and about 1621? Philip II would not have left it behind when he
departed, as it turned out forever, for Spain in 1555. On the other
hand, he might have passed it on to anotherof his Hapsburghrelatives, many of them avid collectors of Titian's work. It is, however,
more probablethat the damaged canvas was retured to Titian in
anticipationof a replacement or satisfactory repairs. The evidence
of Sanuto's engravingcertainlyconfirmsthat it was back in Titian's
studio before 1559. That being the case, the present picture might
have been among the poesie offered to MaximilianII in 1568. Had
the Emperoraccepted that offer, it would followthat his Venus and
Adonis would have passed directlyto his son Rudolph in Prague.
LATERMYTHOLOGIES
TITIAN'S
Since, however,it appearsthatthe Emperordid not followthrough
on that purchase,the picturelistedin 1568 mighthave gone as an
V of Bavaria,who owneda numberof
alterativeto DukeAlbrecht
VenetianpaintingsprocuredthroughJacopo Stradathat eventually
Althoughwe have no definativeproofas to
passed to Rudolph.45
the identityof the variousdepictionsof Venusand Adonisrecorded
by Stradain his two lists,it seems probablethatit was the Gettypicin 1568, passing subsequently
turethatwas offeredto Maximilian
who died in 1579. Itwas probablyshortlyafterthatdate
t Albrecht
thata portionof Albrecht'sMunichgallerypassed to Rudolph,who
had been elected Holy RomanEmperorin 1576 and who made
majoracquisitionsfor his galleryin Prague duringthe following
thatAlbrechtmarriedMaximilian's
decade. It is perhapssignificant
sisterAnne who was thus Rudolph'saunt.The Lausannepainting
might,thus,have been retainedby Titianas a modeland then have
taken a differentroute on ts way to Prague.This must, finally,
remainhypothetical.
On several earlieroccasions Titianhad replacedat no extra
cost paintingsthat had been damaged or had otherwiseproven
Thus, we would suggest that when Philipcomunsatisfactory.46
plainedbitterlyabout the damage to his first Venusand Adonis
Titian,alwaysanxiousto please the Spanishmonarcheven to the
pointof makinggiftsof some pictures,mighthave had the damaged
canvas returnedto him in Venicewhere he decidedthat the fold
couldneverbe made invisibledespitehis own effortsat restoration.
Puttingthe originalaside, he set aboutpaintinga replicathat was
duelydispatched,this time morecarefully,to the king.In an analoof Christthatwas
gous situation,Titianhad paintedan Entombment
lost in shipmentto Philipin 1557. Almostat once Titianpainted
a replica(Madrid,
Museodel Prado)as a replacement
and sent it to
the kingtogetherwithtwoof the secondpairof poesie in September
of 1559.47One might,therefore,positan interimof abouttwo years
betweenthe originalVenusand Adonisand its replica.In this replica he revisedseveralpassages such as Adonisand the quiverto
conformto a moreantiquarian
aesthetic,perhapsat the suggestion
of Dolce.48This second versionwouldthus have been the painting
stilltodayin the Prado.Its characterfullyconfirmsthatit is a replica of the stronger,moresumptiousfirstversion.
of this sequence,a samplingof foursignificant
As confirmation
passages of the Lausanne canvas that were recently X-radiographedproves helpful.49
They show that Venus's head [Fig.9]
was subjectedto severalchanges as workprogressedand thatthe
surrounding
passages of Adonis's draperywere laid in afterher
formwas made final.50This is a familiarworkingsequence with
in the figureof
Titian.Moresignificant
are the numerouspentimenti
Adonishimself.The contourof his hair[Fig.10] was twicereduced
as was the lineof his cheek;his upperdraperywas revisedat severalpointsand the puffof shirtwhereVenus'sarmpushesit upward
at rightwas addedas a finalformulation
over a previousflat form.
His leg underwenttwo modifications
[Fig. 11] in its contour,both
aimedat makingthe finalformslimmer.In bothcases the growing
of the pigmentrendersthese changes visibleto the
transparency
nakedeye as well.Hereone mightnotethe deftclarityof the buskin
mascherone,a strikinggrotesquenot so finelydefinedin any subsequent version. In short, the secure detail and the shifts and
adjustmentsevident in these passages and probablypresent
the paintingare those one wouldexpectof Titian'screthroughout
ative process as he developedhis ideas duringthe worksexecuto have these signs of creativeevotion.A replicawouldbe unlikely
are not availablefor the Madrid
lution;unfortunately,
X-radiographs
canvas. The brushstrokesand layeringof glazes are secure and
deftas in otherTitianpaintingsthathave been X-radiographed
such
as the Venuswitha Mirror
National
of
Gallery Art).51
(Washington,
One finaldetailas revealedby the X-radiograph
is crucial.The
horizontal
crease thatwas madewhenthe picturewas foldedin half
for shipmentin 1554 resultedin an irregular
stripof paintloss along
most of its widthbut most noticablyin the figures(Plates9-10)
wherethe impastowas thicker.
Thiswoulddoubtlesshave been the
damage that most distressed Philip when the work reached
in fact, revealthat these losses were
London.The X-radiographs,
inpaintedwith great skill in the figures,a repairthat moved with
casual assurancewell beyondthe areas of actualpaintloss. That
this restoration
took place almostat once afterthe picturewas finished is confirmedby the fact thatsubsequentwear and earlyflaking has resultedin minisculepaintloss equallyin the originaland
the added restoration.52
Had this inpainting
occuredlaterit would
have filledthese lacunae.It seems therefore,that the restoration
was in place beforelaterdamageoccurred.This stronglysuggests
that a competenthand took on the delicateoperationof repairing
the most evidentpassages of damagefromthe folding.Indeed,this
assured restorermoved freelybeyindthe immediatestripof loss
This restoration
appearsto the unaidedeye to be indistinguishable
fromthe originalpictorial
material[Fig.12]. One wonders,therefore,
if this repairmightnot have been undertaken
by the masterhimself
if the picturewas shippedbackto VenicefromLondon?Certainly,
no local Britishpainterin the tradition
of Holbeinor Morcould be
Venetiantechniqueso precisely;
expectedto matchthis unfamiliar
whatcouldbe morenaturalthanto turnto the artisthimselfto put
thingsto rights?
The ultimateand most significantquestionremainsthe style
and characterof the Lausannepicture.Does its qualityjustifyour
suggestionthat it is Titian'soriginalthat was quicklyreplacedby
a replicaafterit was damagedin transit?I believethatit does. First,
whatwere Titian'ssources in formulating
his Venusand Adonis?
with
a
of
Starting
retrospectivememory his earlier poesie for
Alfonsod'Este, he evidentlysought to simplifyhis compositionto
a more monumentalpyramidalcentralfocus. In the process, he
turnedto a picturethat had remainedunfinishedin his studiosince
35
W. R. REARICK
9) Titian. <<Venusand Adonis,. Lausanne, private collection. X-radiograph of Venus's head.
36
10) Titian. <<Venusand Adonis,>. Lausanne, private collection. X-radiograph of Adonis's head.
37
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W. R. REARICK
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11) Titian. <<Vlenus
and Adonis>>.Lausanne, private collection. X-radiograph of Adonis's buskin.
38
12) Titian. <Venusand Adonis,. Lausanne, private collection. Detail of Venus's head.
the halcyondays of his youth, Jupiterand Antiope (Paris, Musee du
Louvre).This is almost certainlythe picturedescribed as large and
by Titianhimselfas "...a nude woman in a landscape with a satyr,"
a canvas shipped to Philipat some point priorto 1564 when it first
appears in an inventoryof the Pardo huntinglodge.53A pastorale in
the Sannazaro tradition,it was never considered to be part of the
suite just then being formulatedand it would soon be consigned to
the Royal huntinglodge, El Pardo. From it Titiantook the huntsman
at center left and, shiftingthe positions of his arms, converted the
pose to Adonis. For Venus he tumed to the distant nymph that, in
tur, derived from his Pastoral Concert (Paris, Musee du Louvre),
and opened up her pose to its expansive new gesture. The back
39
W. R. REARICK
view depends, in another erudite reference, on the antique relief
then knownas the Bed of Polyclitus.54The Cupid harks back, in an
intentionalcross reference,to the pose of Danae in the canvas that
the artist intended to be seen nearby.The dogs derive from the
recently finished animals in Jupiter and Antiope, and many details
are adapted from the nearly contemporaneous Gloria (Madrid,
Museo del Prado).The monumentalGloriahad been undertakenas
a last majorcommissionfrom Charles V in 1551, but it was shipped
to him in Flandersonly in October 1554; its later stages of execution were, therefore, simultaneous with those of Venus and
Adonis.55They share an unusual tonalitycentered on radientflesh
of a golden hue, deep rose almost merging into burgundy,richly
variegated browns and mossy greens, and, most striking,a dusty
blue in the sky and distant landscape [Fig. 13] in which a touch of
lavender lends it a luminous intensity found only at this particular
moment and developed brieflyinto an even more vivid device in the
two immediatelysubsequent mythologies. This particularlyvolatile
experiment with unusual harmonies is balanced through numerous
passages of great pictorialsubtlty such as the ribbon on Cupid's
quiver, a changeant lavender tinged with apricot to produce
a restrainedcounterpointwith the peach of Adonis's buskin [Fig.
14], and the misty burst of golden sunlight that dominates the
stormy sky at top right. Particularlyluminousis the red, white, and
black striped sash around Adonis's waist, the same fabricdepicted
in the contemporaryPenitent Magdalene (Busto Arsizio, Candiani
collection).Thefirm, but mobile, brushworkfocuses in definitionon
the figures, most particularlythe radiantVenus whose back Titian
himself had considered its salient feature, one that provoked an
enthusiastic encomium from Ludovico Dolce: "...Ne si pub discemere qual parte in Lui sia piu bella, perche ciascuna separatamente, e tute insieme contengono la perfezione dell'artee il colorito contende con il disegno e il disegno con il colorito....Vigiuro,
Signor mio, che non si trova uomo tanto acuto di visto e di giudizio,
che, vedendola (Venus) non la creda viva; niuno cos" raffreddato
dagli anni o si duro di comprensione che non si senta riscaldare,
intenerire,e commuoversi nelle vene tutto il Sangue."56Aroundthis
tangible central motive Titian's brush moves outwardin a progressively looser centripetalvortex. The penumbraof the forest shaded
Cupid emphasizes his secondary role and the dogs are softly but
securely distinguished from the landscape. Most vibrant is the
explosion of lightthat bursts throughthe shiftingclouds that open to
reveal Venus, distraughtand unstable in her dove-drawnchariot,as
her vain interventionpierces the forest at rightwith a blazing spotlightthat reveals the irrealterrorof Adonis's death, a visionary passage of shocking immediacy [Fig. 15]. Unlike the more schematic
refulgences in the various replicas,this burst of lightfinds a parallel
only in the shower of gold in the 1553 Danae. It is this magisterial
range of pictorialpulse that vitalizes Titian's still somewhat Maniera
composition with its figures compressed to monumental presence
40
on the front plane of the picturespace. By comparison,the Prado
replicaat once reveals the calculatedorder of a replica. The brush
movement is even and cautious, a restrained linear attention to
detail that drains the ensemble of pictorialvibrancy.Some changes
have been introduced,particularlyin Adonis's draperywhich is here
reduced to an even modellingin contrastto the richlyvarious shading of the original. Cupid's quiver and bow are rendered more
archaeologicalycorrect in form, but the ribbonhas lost its verve.57
Even the spatial dynamics, so sure in the first version, become
a flatlytapestry-likepatter of dry surface detail in the replica. Most
revealingis the way in which the dramaticplay of light and clouds
is stopped down to an analyticalorderat once more legible, but less
evocative than the original.In short, in gathering his drawings and
perhaps a modello or ricordo together to rise to this emergency,
Titian has manufactureda serviceable reproductionof his inspired
original. How much of the Prado painting was delegated to the
shop? Probably very little. Dry and regular though the execution
might be, it is uniformlyattentiveto correct form and pictorialbalance as pictures assigned to assistants are not.58I believe, therefore, that Titianwould not have riskedsending a replacementfor the
damaged original that was evidently less finished than the preceeding canvas. It was, equally, this fussy concern with getting
every detail just right that robbed the replica of spontaneity.Now
one understandswhy generations of critics have respectfullyjudged
the Prado painting a major document in Titian's formulation of
a poesia in a new vein; it also becomes clear why they have been
unable to respond to it as a powerfulwork of art.
The Prado Venus and Adonis is not, however,the only replicaof
that compositionto come down to us today.Apart from old copies,
mostly noted by Wethey, two versions of superiorqualityare known
today.59One [London, National Gallery.Fig. 2]60 is a composite of
both the Lausanne and Madrid compositions, retaining Adonis's
uncoveredshoulderfromthe Prado replica,but going back to the first
version for details such as Cupid'squiver,and for the pictorialfreedom in the landscape which correspondsmuch more closely with the
Lausanne picture.Its early historyis undocumented,having been first
recorded in the 1783 inventory of the pictures in the Palazzo
Colonna, Rome. Broughtto Londonby the dealer Day, it was sold to
Angersteinin 1801, and in 1824 it was purchased for the National
Gallery.This, I believe, accounts in part for the prudencewith which
both alternativeversions, then also in London,were treated by collectors there. The criticalhistoryof the NationalGallerycanvas follows a fairlyconsistant downwardparabola from autographmasterpiece to shop replicaafterthe Prado picture.This, in part, reflectsan
optimisticmemory of the supposed original,which is simply distinct
from the Londoncanvas. Where the Prado canvas is cautious, dry,
but accurate in touch, the Londonpaintingis slipperyin form, slatey
in color, and somewhat bluntin detail. X-radiographsreveal a steady
hand in the layingin of the figuralelements, but an odd scumbledpat-
13) Titian. <Venusand Adonis). Lausanne, private collection. Detail of landscape.
tern elsewhere. In effect, we would propose that in fairly direct
sequence Titianpainted the Lausanne original,assembled his shop
materialssuch as sketches and ricordiforthe firstreplica,and shortly after undertookthe Londonversion for which details of both preceeding versions were reassembled. Here, certainly,the largerpar-
ticipationof an assistant, probablyone of his northernassociates to
judge from the cold tonality,is perceptible.It remains, however,closer in qualityto the Madridreplicathan to the Lausanne original.
The two picturesfrom Christina'scollection,one with a smooth,
gilt frame and the other in a carved frame, remained together until
41
W. R. REARICK
14) Titian. <Venusand Adonis,,. Lausanne, private collection. Detail of Adonis's buskin.
42
15) Titian. <<Venusand Adonis>. Lausanne, private collection. Detail of the death of Adonis.
about 1798 when the formerwent to BenjaminWest and the latter
was sold first to Frtzhughand then, in 1844, to the 2nd Earl of
Normanton.Hung high above eye level at Somerley, the Normanton
picture was, like the Lausanne version, given cautious attention,
only Wethey suggesting that it might be partiallyautograph,untilits
sale at Christie'sin 1991 when it was judgedto be by Titianand his
workshop. It went subsequently to the J. Paul Getty Museum in
Malibuwhere it was cleaned and restored.61Unlikethe Madridand
Londonversions, the Getty pictureretums to the originalin its drapery and the more compact, tilted position of Adonis's head, but
retains the quiver of the first replica. X-radiographs[Fig. 16] reveal
that it was subject to numerous small pentimentiduring its execu43
W. R. REARICK
tion. One notes, in particular,the innumerableadjustments in the
upper partof Adonis, where countours were shifted or reduced and
passages of draperysuch as that over his rightbicept or fallen over
Venus's rightarm have been added last Other details such as the
ribbonson the quiverwere firstlaid in withthe same shape as those
of the Lausanne picture and subsequently finished in a new form.
One should note, in particular,the strikinglynew idea of darkening
Venus's head, a shadowed profilethat looks forwardto the Diana
head in the London Death of Acteon. Together, the X-radiographs
reveal a composition in a stage of revision toward a new formulation, ratherthan a pedantic replica. In fact, it is clearly transitional
between the first type and the later, horizontalformat seen in the
Washingtoncanvas. Its formalfont might well have been a ricordo
after the original, a practice doubtless used for all of the poesie
painted for Philip II. Such a small version of the three dog Venus
and Adonis remainedin Titian's studio and was sold by Bartolomeo
della Nave in 1638.62 The key to the Getty picture'splace in the
sequence lies, however, in its pictorialcharacter and particularlyin
the chiaroscuro contrast between spot-lit figures and the darker
landscape. Color in the Getty painting tends to a blonder, more
evenly illuminatedtonalityin the figures, an even light that reduces
the corporeal plasticityof their forms and is frequently,as in the
draperyabove Adonis's thigh and his buskin, linearand thready in
texture. This last detail is particularlyill-drawnby comparison with
the original,and the foot has been clumsily turned parallelto the
picture plane. The landscape, and most particularlythe celestial
radiance, is dominated by a tendency to black shadow quite unlike
the luminousintensityof the Lausanne environmentat right.In this
it clearly looks forwardto the later, more horizontaltreatment with
two dogs and most particularly
to the Washington painting where
a flash of white radience barely pierces the black clouds at upper
right.This darkened tonality in tum parallels the change between
the original Diana and Callisto [Edinburgh,National Galleries of
Scotland. Fig. 21] and its replica [Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum. Fig. 26], a picturethat I would date, as discussed below,
to the mid-1560s. The Getty paintingseems similarlyto belong to
a transitionalphase between the firstgroup of later poesie and their
final revisionduringthe seventh decade of the century.I wouldsuggest a date of ca. 1561-1562, contemporarywith the Christin the
Garden of Gesthemane (Madrid,Museo del Prado)that was sent to
Philip II in 1562 and at the same time as the Last Supper (El
Escorial)that was in progress between 1558 and 1564. Titian'sown
hand is probablyresponsable for much of the surface of the figures
and crucialpassages of the setting such as the radianceat top right,
but a significantamount of workshop execution, probablyOrazio, is
detectable throughout.There is no recordof who might have commissioned it, but, as I will suggest furtheron, this might have been
the Venus and Adonis offered to the EmperorMaximilianII in 1568.
As such, it would belong to the increasingnumberof replicas accu44
mulated piecemeal in the shop as a stock available for offer at any
moment in which a possible client might come into view.
The replicas and engravingsafter the Venus and Adonis amply
testify to the wide success of that compositionin the years following 1554, and it was in that year that the projectof a suite of poesie
began to take shape. Although the Danae and the Venus and
Adonis were conceived by the artistto be complementary,they are
of quite differentsize. Now the progressionto two furthermythologies clearlyshows that Titianhad decided to followthe latterpicture
with two more poesie of nearly identicalsize (that is, about 179 x
197 cm. for the originalPerseus and Andromedain comparisonwith
178 x 200 cm. for the Venus and Adonis). The artistwrote to the
king on 10 September, 1554, that he would soon send him the
Perseus and Andromeda, and in December of the same year the
patronwrote to urge the painterto complete the commissioned pictures.63 Finished by March, 1556, it was dispatched to Ghent the
following September. Dolce referred to it in 1557 as done for
Philip.64It is normally,but wrongly, assumed that the canvas in
progress between 1554 and 1556 is the Perseus and Andromeda
today in the Wallace Collectionin London, a painting that, instead,
belongs with Titian's later suite of mythologies.However,the orginal
version is thoughtto have been in Aranjueztogether with the other
poesie only around 1584 when the finished cycle was brought
togetherthere for the firsttime. That work was, however, more probably the copy seen there togetherwiththe other poesie by Cassiano
dal Pozzo65, and the originalappears to have been given away prior
to 1579. Although such a gift is not documented, it is likely that
Philip presented this poesia to his favored ministerAntonio Perez,
since, on the dispersal of Perez's picture gallery in 1585-1586
a "quadrogrande de Andromidae Preseo (sic) volando" was listed.66 It may have been acquired by the sculptor Leone Leoni
between 1589 and 1591 since his son Leon Battistaowned a picture on his death in Milan in 1605 called "Una Andromeda de
Tiziano desheca," that is to say Titian's Andromeda described as
damaged. His brotherPompeo left on his death in Madridin 1608
a large Andromeda by Titian,but hereafterthis first version cannot
be traced untilit turs up in the collectionof Louis Hesselin in Paris
prior to Constantin Huygens mention of it as there in 1649.67 It
remained in that Paris collection until Hesselin's death in 1662. In
the meantime, it would appear that Van Dyck had acquiredTitian's
second treatment of the theme, the canvas now in the Wallace
Collection, a picture left with the artist's estate in London in 1641
and which passed by way of the Earlof Northumberland
to Paris by
about 1654. This lattercannot, therefore,be the first version which
may be presumed to have been lost after 1662. That it was a replica of the Leoni picture is suggested by the inventorywhere it is
described as "...qui se dit du Titien."68
The first version of the Perseus and Andromeda, begun in
1554 just as the originalof the Venus and Adonis was reaching
16) Titian and workshop. <Venusand Adonis). Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum. X-radiograph.
completionand shipped just before 1557, was notablydifferentfrom
the Wallace Collectionreplica. For it we have a drawing [Florence,
Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe. Fig. 17], the only autograph
study for any of the later poesie.69 It is a rough early stage in the
formulationof the compositionin which Andromeda struggles clum-
sily on her rocky promontoryat right.Her ungainlypose, rightarm
raised over her head which turns away in anguish, shares
a brusque naturalismwith the nymphs in the immediatelysubsequent EdinburghDiana and Callisto. Partlydependant on the 1553
Saint Margaret(El Escorial, apartments of Philip II) and an antici45
W. R. REARICK
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Wallace Collection. X-radiograph.
17) Titian. <<Perseus and Andromeda? (drawing). Florence,
Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, no. 12911 F, verso.
pation of the later repetitions of that subject (Madrid,Museo del
Prado; Kreuzlingen, Heinz Kisters collection), this pose finds
numerous progeny in Titian's later pictures.Its brusque use of black
and white chalks to evoke pictorialeffect is characteristicof Titian's
concetti, the energetic firststages in establishinga composition that
was destined to undergo major revisions as the work progressed
toward the painting.A rocky promontoryrises at right, and toward
the left a broad seascape opens to show a barely suggested dragon at center and the flying figure of Perseus who swoops down
towardthe left. At left, what appears to be another promentoryis not
directlyrelated to the figures and appears to have been added later
by Ttian as he preparedthe Wallace Collection revision. Since the
recto of the Uffizi study contains a sketch for the Christ in the
Garden of Gethsemane (Madrid,Museo del Prado), a commission
from Philip II made shortly before 1558 and a finished canvas that
was shipped in 1562, its conception and execution fall just after the
46
completion of the first Perseus and Andromeda, a propinquityof
date that explains why Ttian picked up the sheet on which he had
explored the pose of Andromeda and turend it over to study the
Christ. Why should we believe that the format with Andromeda
standing at rightwas the originalformulationof 1554? First,the Xradiographs[Fig. 18] of the Wallace Collection canvas carried out
first in 1962 and repeated in 1982 clearly show that Titian's first
"stesura"placed Andromedaat rightin a pose developed from the
drawingwith the head turnedto the left and the left arm partlyraised
before making a drastic revisionin which she was shifted to the left
side of the canvas. This change had already been contemplatedin
the added promontoryat left in the Uffizisketch. Second, Anthony
van Dyck sketched the nude Andromeda twice in his Antwerp
sketchbook (London,BritishMuseum. Plate 19) in a position that, in
the left sketch, can only reproduce the composition where she
stands at right.Van Dyck drew Andromedatwice but from the same
painted source, not, as has been suggested, from a picturein which
this figure appeared twice or from a drawing.70His abbreviatedrepetition at right simply reflects his compulsion to correct what must
have seemed anatomical errors in Titian's original.The Flemish
N
19) Anthony van Dyck. <<Andromeda)(drawing). London,
British Museum, folio 110 verso.
master probablysaw the first Andromeda in Milanduringthe years
between 1621 and 1627 when he was a frequent resident in Genoa.
Despite missing records, the picture might well have been sent
back once more to Leoni heirs in Milan.Finally,the firstversion had
a powerfulimpact on many Venetian painters in the years following
1556. Paolo Veronese, always abreast of Titian's latest experiments, was on particularlyclose terms with the senior master in
1557 when the first Perseus and Andromeda was finished,
a moment in which Titianawarded him the gold chain as the best of
the young painters employed on the Libreria Marciana ceiling.
Caliariwould paraphrase the canvas sent to Philip II in his later
Perseus and Andromeda [Rennes, Musee des Beaux-Arts. Fig.
20]71 which clarifiesthe ideas only adumbratedin the drawing but
subsequentedly defined as Van Dyck's sketch and the X-radi-
20) Paolo Veronese. (<Perseus and Amdromeda,,. Rennes,
Musee des Beaux-Arts.
ographs confirmin the lost picture.The evidence clearly points to
a Perseus and Andromeda in which Andromeda stood at right,
Perseus droppedfromthe air to battlethe sea dragon at center, and
the pictorialtonalitywas lighter,more rosy as the Veronese reflects
it The Wallace Collectionrevisionbegan as a replicaof that lost picture, but quicklygave place to a darklydramatic new concept.
In 1554 the artist had offered to paint two poesie to follow
Venus and Adonis, the Perseus and Andromeda and a Jason and
Medea. Jason and Medea is an unusual subject for a Cinquecento
painter, and the originalhas disappeared leaving not a trace, even
in the form of copies or derivations.This suggests that since it is not
mentioned in later corespondance, the Medea might have been
projected,perhaps not even begun, and certainlynever finished or
shipped to Spain.
47
W. R. REARICK
Only in September, 1559, does Titianwrite to the king that he
is sending the finished Diana and Callisto and Diana and
Actaeon.72 The first of these to be painted was the Diana and
Callisto [Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, Duke of
Sutherland loan. Fig. 21]73. Its composition is more complex and
less monumentalthan that of the Venus and Adonis, but it retains
certaindetails of figures and dogs that are clearly developed on the
basis of the earlierpoesia. Its figures vary from the stylized Diana,
who seems inspiredby a Fountainbleau-typeby way of prints,74to
the more naturalistic,even brutallyrealisticnudes at left. Its texture
is still richlyworked in creamy impasto, but certain passages such
as the draperyat top rightand the landscape show a softer, more
transparent luminosity and a more fluent brush action. Although
Titian seems not to have undertaken replicas of the Diana and
Callistoimmediately, he must have regardedit as a success, retaining studies and probablya ricordofor future reference.
In tuming to the Diana and Acteon [Edinburgh, National
Galleries of Scotland, Duke of Sutherland loan. Fig. 22],75 Titian
restrainedthe unstable poses and exaggerated action of the nudes
in the Callisto, orderinghis pictorialspace with a balanced distribution of figures against a regular background of the trees and
a nymphaeum. The nudes here are more unifiedtoward a natural,
but handsomely idealized norm. The free, luminescent glazes are
now more translucentand color tends toward a cooler radiance.
The intense blues of the landscape and sky find their source in the
first Venus and Adonis, but here they achieve a charged vibrancyof
brillianteffect. Silvery rivulets of light skitter across surfaces with
almost autonomous volatility.The balance is held by the reflections
in the stream, a late allusion to the familiarDolce axiom that painting is superior to sculpture because reflections allow simultaneous
views of the forms. It must have attracted wide and enthusiastic
attention among Venetian painters priorto its departurefor Spain,
an interest documented by copies and variants by Schiavone and
other artists in Venice.76Again, no replicas were undertakenin the
immediatewake of its shipmentto Spain in September, 1559, but in
this case we do have evidence for a ricordopainting. Recently published by Pignatti, the small canvas of Diana and Acteon
[Lausanne, privatecollection. Fig. 23]77reproduces the originalwith
minimalvariationsconsisting largely of details simplifiedduring the
reductivescaling down of the larger picture. Its color is somewhat
higher keyed and blonderthan the original,but the brushstrokesfollow the model faithfullybut with a surprisingdegree of spontaneity
of touch. The painter has left marginalstrips of primed canvas at
either side, a casual effect that suggests that it was never conceived to be a finished picturefor sale or consignment to a patron.
The question of its autographcharacter is more difficultto answer.
We knowthat Titianassigned the task of making reduced copies of
his finished works to his apprentices,occasionally palmingthem off
later as his own work.78In this case, however, the fresh spontane48
ity of touch and color suggests that he reserved this task to himself.
Although several derivations after the large original survive, the
replica recorded in the list of pictures offered in 1568 to Emperor
MaximilianII does not. It was, however copied by Teniers (London,
Kenwood, Iveagh Bequest)79.
It was on 10 June, 1559, that the painterwrote to the king that
he had begun a paintingof the Death of Acteonthat was, along with
the Europa and the Bull, intended to complete the cycle.80Again,
that original has not survived, but a later treatment (London,
National Gallery)is often identifiedas that first version. Unlike the
Wallace Collection Perseus and Andromeda, the National Gallery
Death of Acteon sheds very littlelighton the formatof the lost first
version. The ambiguitiesevident in the second treatmentare limited to the figure of Diana who, like the Andromeda, was first
sketched onto the canvas in a somewhat differentpose. It is not,
unlikethe first placement of Andromeda,very suggestive of Titian's
prior composition. The first Death of Acteon remains the most elusive of Titian'spoesie for PhilipII.
Duringthe summer of 1559, before the Diana and Acteon was
quite finished and simultaneously with the ricordo after it, Titian
undertookwhat was to be the last of the survivingpoesie painted
for PhilipII,the Rape of Europa [Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum. Fig. 24].81Here he both expanded the spacial range and
reduced it, flatteningthe single group of Europaand the bull to the
picture plane and enforcing this foregroundconcentrationwith the
pairof puttiabove and the thirdon the fish at lower left. By contrast,
he opens the backgroundto a volatile expanse of sea and landscape, one evoked rather than described, one in which form dissolves into veils of luminescent mist. Audacious in its synthesis of
heroic scale and awkwardrealism in Europa'sbouncing movement,
this headlong vision was not destined to inspire replicationalthough
one repetitiondid exist in 1568. The originalwas finished before 26
April,1562, when the artistwrote to the king that it would soon be
shipped.82
With these stunning masterpieces, Philip's gallery of poesie
had presumablycome to include seven paintings,an ensemble that
was apparentlyready to be hung together to constitutea sort of studiolo in the traditionof Isabella d'Este and her brotherAlfonso.83
This room was not, unlike its antecedents in Italy,an architectural
ensemble especially designed for a suite of paintings. It seems,
instead, to have been an ordinary large room somewhat
sequestered from the activities of court, one where Philip might
retirefor his own privatedelectationof the aesthetic and erotic pleasures these poesie so amplyafforded.Simultaneouslywith the poesie Philip had commissioned a steady stream of religious pictures,
as well as two lost canvases depictingVenus, one described simply
as a "Venere ignuda" completed by 2 December 1567 and a second, listed with pictures not yet paid for in 1574, and described
more specificallyas "Venus con Amor che gli tiene il specchio." If
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21) Titian. ((Diana and Callisto?. Edinburgh, National Galeries of Scotland, Duke of Sutherland loan.
49
23) Titian. <Diana and Acteon,. (ricordo). Lausanne, private collection.
they are the same pictureit was probablya replicaof the Venus and
Cupid with a Mirror(Washington,National Gallery of Art)84,a canvas that Titiankept in his studio untilhis death in 1576. It would not,
then, have been intendedto continue the suite of poesie. We may,
therefore, summerize Titian's contributionof poesie to the galleryof
PhilipII as follows: Danae (Madrid,Prado) in progress 1553-1554
but not yet conceived as the start of a cycle; Venus and Adonis
(Lausanne, privatecollection) in progress 1553-1554 as the first of
51
W. R. REARICK
24) Titian. <<Rapeof Europa,. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
52
this size and format,but substitutedby a replica (Madrid,Prado) ca.
1555-1556; Perseus and Andromeda and Jason and Medea (lost,
or in the second case probablynever executed) conceived as a pair
in 1554 and in the firstinstance probablydeliveredjust before 1557;
Diana and Callisto and Diana and Acteon (Edinburgh, National
Galleries of Scotland, Sutherlandloan) begun as a pair in 1556 and
sent in 1559; Death of Acteon (lost) the picture described as in
progress in 1559; Rape of Europa (Boston, Gardner Museum) of
1559-1562.
III.
It is normally assumed that the rather numerous replicas or
variantsof this cycle are to a significantdegree or perhaps totally
pedestrian repetitions attributableto Titian's later shop. They are,
instead, part of a new chapter in the developmentof the poesia in
the last fifteen years of Titian's career. Equally mistaken is the
assumption that the Wallace Collection Perseus and Andromeda
and the London NationalGallery Death of Acteon belong with the
originalcycle painted for Philip II. Instead, the evidence points to
both canvases as being two of the poesie that Titianoffered in 1568
to the Emperor MaximilianII. The famous picture dealer Jacopo
Strada acted as intermediarybetween the emperor and the imperial agent in Venice, Veit von Dornberg,in formulatingthe list of paintings that Strada described as by the master's own hand.85In it one
finds Venus and Adonis, Diana and Callisto, Diana and Acteon, the
Death of Acteon, Perseus and Andromeda, and the Rape of
Europa. Perhaps he is careless about titles when he describes
a Diana and Endymeon, a subject seemingly never treated by Titian
at any time, and he omits the Jason and Medea, a picturethat may
never have been undertakenor sent to Spain. It is certainlyunlikely that he confused Medea with Diana. Thus, the Strada list corresponds exactly with the cycle for Philip II with the exception of the
ambiguous JasonlEndymeon picture.Whichof the poesie recorded
in 1568 might be identifiedtoday? We mightbegin with Venus and
Adonis, the first in the large scale cycle. As we have noted above,
the Lausanne originalseems to have been returnedto Titian and
was surely still in the studio in 1559 when Sanuto engraved it; the
London, National Gallery replica might also have been there
althoughwe have no evidence about its comission or consignment;
and the Getty Museum Venus and Adonis seems to be datable to
shortly before 1562 as a transitionalwork. It was not, in fact, the
final treatmentof this theme. On the basis of the Getty composition,
but with significantchanges, Titian revised his monumental treatment as a more intimatepoesia, one in which the figureseven more
insistantlyfill the foregroundand the landscape recedes into a very
secondary role with little definitionof either space or detail. The
sleeping Cupid and his dove disappear and are awkwardlyreplaced
by a bust length Cupidwho is awake and clasps the dove in alarm,
a participantdropped from the replicas of the Lausanne composition. Its color now turns somber, a nocturnalshadow that reduces
Venus' helpless interventionat top right as merely a pale flash of
lightningthroughthe dense black clouds. The best extant version of
this smaller Venus and Adonis [Washington,NationalGalleryof Art.
Fig. 5]86can be traced only to the Palazzo Barbarigopriorto 1660
when it was noted by Boschini,but it is possibly one of the pictures
leftin Titian's studioat his death, a miscellaneous stock that passed
for the most part to the Barbarigofamily.As such, it would have
served the studio as a model for replicasin much the same way as
the Washington Venus with the Mirrorhad been retained for that
purpose a few years earlier. On 24 May, 1562, Titian wrote to
Vecellio Vecelli to reportthat Orazio would send him his pictureof
Venus and Adonis.87His terms, "Horatiovi manda il vostro quadreto
ci Adone il quale e bellissimo et lo goderete...", make it clear that
this Venus and Adonis was a smaller pictureentirelyby Orazio. This
second version of the Washington reductionof this smaller poesia
[New York,MetropolitanMuseum. Fig. 6]88is softer in form, reddish
in tonality, and descriptive in detail in a style that exactly corresponds with our idea of Orazio's interpretationof Titian's mode at
this moment. The Washington composition was engraved by
Raphael Sadeler II in 1610, doubtless when it was already in
Palazzo Barbarigo a San Polo. Egidius also engraved it at an
unrecordeddate probablytowardthe end of the Cinquecento. Since
one assumes that the cycle listed in 1568 was of more or less uniform scale, the smaller, later reductionof the Venus and Adonis
would not have fitted into that context. It seems, therefore,probable
that Titiankept the Lausanne and Getty paintingsin his shop, offering one of them to Maximilianin 1568. In the meantime,in 1562, he
had made the Washingtonreductionthat was at once replicatedby
Orazio. There remainsthe odd version of Venus and Adonis (Rome,
Galleria Nazionale Palazzo Barberini)89,a canvas that had also
come from the collection of Queen Christina.The only edition that
is higher than wide, it unexpectedly follows most closely the
Lausanne original but expands the space above and especially
below,doubtless under the influenceof one or more of the engravings. Its original contributionis the absurd addition of a rakeish
hunting hat. Its pictorialquality is irregularand episodic, varying
from inarticulatedin the figures to broadly naturalisticin the landscape. Althoughits paintermust have had at least one of Titian's
paintingsas a model, most probablythe London replica, he equally depended on the Sanuto engraving of 1559. This anonymous
shop assistant seems to have been one of the numerous Flemish
and German artists who frequented Venetian painters' shops in
these years. Althoughhe makes a valiant effortto ape Titian's style,
he betrays the naturalisticNortherntraditionfrom which he stems.
It is possible, but not verifyabledue to lack of comparativepictures,
that he was EmanuelAmberger, an Augsburg apprentice who was
still a shop assistant to the master in 1567 when he was called by
53
W. R. REARICK
25) Titian and workshop. <<Perseusand Andromeda)>. London,
Wallace Collection.
26) Titian and workshop. <<Dianaand Callisto,,. Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Titianhis very talented young pupil.90While it seems improbable,it
cannot be excluded that the Rome Venus and Adonis was the picture listed in 1568.
As we have seen in the case of the Diana and Acteon, Titian
kept a ricordoof his first Perseus and Andromeda in his studio so
that he mighthave a guide in the productionof replicas.91When the
time came to undertake this replica [London, Wallace Collection.
Fig. 25]92 of the originalPerseus and Andromeda Titian doubtless
consulted this ricordo and began with Andromedaat right, but the
artist suddenly changed his mind, as the X-radioraphshows, and
shifted her to the left side of the composition.It was this revised version that appears in the collection of Anthony van Dyck before
1641.93 He had admiredthe damaged firstconcept earlier,probably
in Milan,and seized the opportunityto acquire the second version,
doubtless the replica offered to MaximilianII in 1568 and subsequently dispersed around the Hapsburghempire. Indeed, the pictorial character of the Wallace Collection painting entirely supports
a dating around 1562-1565. Darklystormy in tonality,its shadows
are impenetrablyopaque although this is emphasized by the bitumen which has turned blacker. The color flickers in a visionary
intensityof accents such as the rose and lavenderof Perseus'cloth-
ing, the greenish reflections over the loosely brushed waves, and
the touch of scarlet in the coral. The surreal effect of glowing lightin
the sky and over the distantcity closely parallelsthe menacing nocturnalfire in the 1565 Saint Margaret(Madrid,Museo del Prado).
Andromeda is an attenuated Maniera form that stands mid-way
between the Diana in Diana and Callistoand the Diana in the Death
of Acteon, and the compositionis a more sluggish revision of the
1559-1562 Rape of Europa. Thus, we would propose that the
Wallace Collection Perseus and Andromedabegan as a replica with
majorchanges of the originalaround 1562 and was nearly finished
in its revised format around 1565 to be offered to Maximilianin
1568. The Emperorseems to have declined the prospect of duplicating the studiolo of his cousin Philip.It would appear that no early
engraver undertookto reproduce either version of this theme.
The Diana and Callisto was shipped to Spain in late summer,
1559, but drawings and a ricordowere retained for the production
of replicas.94 The best of these is a revision [Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Fig. 26]95, that is only slightly smaller than
the original.This replica differsfrom it in the substitutionof a statue
of Diana as Huntress for the earlier putto fountain,the omission of
the nude seated at Diana's feet, the shifts of pose and type in the
54
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27) Cornelius Cort, engraving after Titian. <Diana and
Callisto,. Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale.
two nymphs at left and in the numerous changes in the group at
right,and finallythe omission of the dog at center front, his place
taken illogicallyfor a huntress by a spaniel lap dog. Its pictorialshift
is equally pervasive, a darkening of the glowing sensuality of the
originalin favor of deeply saturatedreds and dark green that set the
figures into higher relief and isolation against a more spacious but
less vibrant landscape. The effect is to render the scene austere,
a somber stasis that gains in severity but looses much of the
painterlyvitalityof the original.As in most of the other replicasof the
poesie, Titian clearly took responsibilityfor the revisions but here
a sizable percentage of the actual execution was allottedto Orazio.
It was this compositionthat Comelius Cort engraved [Fig.'27] and
dated 1566 in a second state, surprisinglyallowing it to be printed
in reverse of the picture.96He must have followed standard proceedure in utilizingTitian's drawingsand exertinga certain freedom
to depart from the pictorialconcept, perhaps by way of a painted
ricordo. He changed much of the left side, here right,and lent the
statue an airy luminositylacking in the Vienna painting.Two years
later this print,one of the most successful reproductionsof the later
poesie, might have helped to advertise the offer of the paintingto
Maximilian.We do not know the whereaboutsof the Vienna replica
between 1568 and before 1648 when it was in the Antwerp collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, but once again a Hapsburgh
provenance is probable.
Surprisingly, neither the Diana and Acteon nor the Rape of
Europa survives in a full scale replica that might be identifiedwith
those listed in the 1568 letter.In the case of the Rape of Europawe
know that a large replica, presumablythat listed in 1568 by Strada,
remained in Venice where Bartolomeodella Nave sold it in 1630 to
Basil Fielding who consigned it to Lord Hamilton in 1638-1639.
Thence it passed to Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels and finally to
Vienna where it was lost.97Neitherof these poesie was the subject
of engraved reproductions of high quality like Cort's Diana and
Callisto.98And yet both subjects figure in the 1568 list of replicas
offered to Maximilian.That Maximiliandid not take advantage of this
offer is confirmedby the fact that an identicallist, compiled anonymously and withouta date, records an offerto Albrecht V, Duke of
Bavaria. Jacopo Strada acted not only for Maximilianbut also for
Albrechtduringthese years, and therefore might have proposed the
pictures to the latter after the former had demonstrated disinterest
in the project.Since certain groups of pictures, particularlythose by
Paolo Veronese, passed on Strada's recommendationto Albrecht
and thence to RudolphII in Prague where they were looted by the
Swedish troops for Queen Christina,it is possible that some if not
all of the 1568 poesie followed this provenance. At least the Death
of Acteon is a prime candidate for this sequence.99
The firstversion of the Death of Acteon is mentionedin Titian's
letterto Philipof June, 1559, but since he says he had alreadystarted paintingit together with the Rape of Europa its inception might
be placed slightlyearlier. In fact, its compositionis closely relatedto
that of the first version of the Perseus and Andromeda, shipped
before 1557. There the figura serpentinata of Andromeda stood to
the rightwhile Diana in the Death of Acteon follows the same elongated Maniera type but shifts her position to profileat left. X-radiographs [Fig. 28] of the Londoncanvas100reveal that the first stage
of the compositionconsisted only of the female figure and that her
pose was modified several times, not only in the positions of the
arms where her rightarm was originallydown near her side but also
in her legs. It has been noted that it would be physicallyalmost
impossible to shoot an arrowwith one's right leg extended forward,
and indeed she dearly did not at first shoot an arrow. In terms of
narrativelogic, Diana has no motivationfor shooting at Acteon; his
dogs are carryingout her vengance. Therefore,the Death of Acteon
[Fig.29] began, like the replicaof the Perseus and Andromeda, with
55
W. R. REARICK
drastic pentimentiand rethinkingof the lost first version, a process
that clearly extended over a ratherlong span. In fact, the Diana is
painted in a differenttechnique from the remainderof the picture;
thin in glaze, liquidin paint consistency, and nearly monochromein
a pallidharmonyof beige and dull rust, she most closely resembles
the Angel in the Annunciation(Naples, San Domenico), a picture
commissioned for Cosmo Pinellifor the altar of his newly acquired
chapel in San Domenico, a renovationconsacrated in 1557, a date
that we would also assign to the Annunciation.101We would propose that as the Perseuscame near to being finishedin 1557, Titian
undertookthe first version of the Death of Acteon simultaneously
withthe Naples Annunciation,and around 1559 painteda ricordoof
the finished picture.This, in turn, providedthe startingpoint for the
replica which, however, like the Andromeda, underwent significant
revisionon the new canvas. Then, the Diana laid in, Titianset the
replicaaside and tured, as was his wont, to other projects. It was
only around 1567, probablyunder the pressure of finishingit so that
it might form part of the cycle ready for sale in 1568, that he
retumed to work. The episode of Acteon devoured by his hounds
had not even been sketched in, and its present placement, parallel
to the frontplane but deep in the middleground,separates it entirely fromthe vengefulgodess who does not aim in the directionof her
victum and does not even seem to take any logical role in the
tragedy. This execution in two stages allows for studio participation
in the feeble figureof Diana but not in the remainderof the canvas.
The flickeringilluminationof the scene of grisly death only intensifies the anguished image of the transmogrifiedhunter who tries in
vain to find human voice to call off his own dogs. The furious energy withwhich Titianevokes in tones of brown,bronze, and blackthe
terrorslurkingin the depths of the nocturnalforest makes of it one
of his most dramaticlyintense landscapes. The shrubs at frontcenter seem pure evocations of the action of his brush, now almost
detached from naturalisticdescriptionand instead pure pictorialfervor. Finally,it is precisely the visual and narrativefragmentationof
its protractedexecution that renders the Death of Acteon a harrowing masterpiece.It is not surprisingthat, as the picturemade its way
to join the other Titians in the gallery of the Queen of Sweden, no
engraver dared attempt to translate its pictorialfuror into a printed
reproduction.
Titianhad found it occasionaly expedient to paint replicasof his
most admired pictures so that another patron, preferably distant
from the originalowner, might have the pleasure and distinctionof
owning an admiredmasterpiece. Althoughmany such replicas were
assigned in part or entirelyto his assistants and apprentices, the
master did not disdain the task of repeatinghimself if the commissioner required careful treatment. None of Titian's benefactors
enjoyed better treatment than Philip II, and the cycle of poesie
undertakenfor the king shortly after 1551 and concluded in 1562
appears to have been the focus of his most concentratedcreativity
56
and to have been autographin its entirety.However,duringthe last
thirtyyears of his long career Titian depended increasinglyon the
productionof replicas after his most popular compositions. When
he painted them himself these repeated compositions were invariably subjected to intensive rethinkingwith a new and often surprising workthe result. For them, he frequentlyretaineda first treatment
of the theme as model; strikingexamples are the Venus with the
Mirroror the Penitent Magdalene.102In other instances such as the
Adorationof the Magi, Titianproduced a series of replicas of demiHis habit
nishing quality and with augmented shop participation.103
of signing them ostentatiouslyand demanding a consistantly high
price led progressivelyto widespread doubts about the authenticity
of such replicas or other large scale projects such as the
1564-1568 ceilings for the Brescia city hall. Precisely these doubts
seem to have promptedJacopo Strada to write, in his 1568 letter
proposing to the Emperor MaximilianII the acquisitionof Titian's
last cyce of poesie, that these six paintingswere entirelythe work
doTitian's own hand.
It is evident from the circumstancesand characterof the surviving originalsthat this second suite of later mythologieswere not
the result of a single patron's commission.104Instead, like many
other of his revised replicas,they accumulatedpiecemeal in the studio with no precise destination in view. The fame of the series of
poesie for Philip II must have suggested to Titianthat a rich and
ambitious patron or patrons might aspire to a similar prestigeous
acquisition;and with such an eventualityonly vaguely in mind, the
old man seems to have worked sporadicallyon these six canvases
bringingsome to completionin just a couple of years while leaving
others barely begun or suspended in the midst of sometimes major
revision. Early accounts of his working methods, stories about his
furiouslyenergetic sketch on a canvas followed by sometimes long
intervalsin which the pictureremainedface to the studio wall only
to be turned around and attacked with renewed energy or tumed
over to assistants for completion,evidentlygo far toward explaining
the evident fits and starts that the surviving paintings display.105
That he envisioned the productionof such replicas is suggested by
the unexpected accumulationof multipleeditions of the Venus and
Adonis in the studio from 1554 on and by the preparationof ricordi
such as that done afterthe Diana and Acteon in 1559. In any case,
by 1568 the Bir Grande studio must have been crowded with large
poesie in need of a properhome and a remunerativeclient. Hence,
the clearly abortive attempt to interest the emperor in their purchase. AlthoughMaximiliandoubtless was aware of Philip'sfamous
cycle, his own artistictaste had never led him to commission pictures from Titian and his reputation for fiscal prudence did not
encourage large expenditures on useless objects such as painted
poesie. One suspects that he or his ministers might have read
between the lines of Strada's protestationsin favor of the paintings'
authenticity. The identical list of poesie among the papers of
AlbrechtV of Bavaria doubtless testifies to a subsequent effort of
Strada's partto dispose of the cycle; a projectabout which we have
no furtherdocumentationbut one that might well have borne fruit.If
they went to Munichsometime after 1568, these six pictures were
not destined to remainthere for long, at least some of them moving
on to the Prague galleryof RudolphII before the end of the century.106We may summerizethe evolutionof this second set of poesie
as follows: Venus and Adonis (probablythe version now at Malibu,
J. Paul Getty Museum) painted around 1561-1562; the Perseus
and Andromeda (London, Wallace Collection)started around 1562
but not finished until about 1565; the Diana and Callisto (Vienna,
KunsthistorischesMuseum) painted shortly before Cort engraved it
in 1566; the Diana and Acteon (lost) probablycarried out with the
preceeding replica ca. 1566; the Rape of Europa (lost) executed
after 1562 but more probably close to 1566-1567; the Death of
Acteon (London, National Gallery) begun around 1559-1560 but
not finished untiljust before 1568. Whatever might have been the
dispositionof this second set of later poesie, Titiandoes not seem
to have been tempted to undertakeany furthervariantsof his monumentalcycle. Except for the small editionof the always marketable
Venus and Adonis, all of the poesie had left the shop when the old
man died in 1576.
IV.
By 1568 when the second cycle of poesie was offered for sale
en bloc, Titian had turned to religious and historical themes for
Philip II and his project, vaguely adumbrated for the prince in
Augsburg almost twenty years before, may be considered complete. But even duringthe laterstages of workon the poesie Titian's
extrordinaryeffloresence of pictorialinspirationbrought into being
other treatments of mythologicalthemes destined for other patrons
but also the progeny of this richly creative cycle for Spain. The
ongoing suite of paintingsdedicated to the reclining Venus, sometimes with an organ or lute player,would be variablyassigned to the
workshop assistants,107 and a violent parallel for the mythologies
would be found in the subject of Tarquinand Lucretia,but true poesie are rare in the master's last years.
Here, we might introduce a painting that has, remarkably,
almost entirely escaped critical notice. The Rape of Ganeymede
[Kreutzlingen,Heinz Kisters collection. Fig. 30]108appears to have
escaped the attentionof early commentators,doubtless because it
was never availableto a broad public,but it is especially remarkable
that the phalanx of energetic scholars at work on Titian over the
past century never mention this strikingcanvas. The sole exception
is Wethey who seems to have seen only a photograph and who
then took a quite unjustifiablyacidcview of its quality.109True, the
composition has been known since Ridolficalled attentionto it as
a ceilingformerlyin the house of the Assonica in Padua, saying that
in it Damiano Mazza, a Titianpupil, had depicted "...nel soffito d'un
bel vedere Ganimede rapito dall'Aquila,quanto il naturale, creduto
That canvas, originallyoctagper la sua esquisitezza di Tiziano."110
onal but pieced out in the eighteenthcenturyto a nearly square format, appears to have left the Assonica collection before Ridolfi's
time and would reappear, accordingto Mariettewho ascribed it to
Titian,in 1717 in the GalleriaColonna at Rome. In the meantime,at
a date close to 1666-1669, Audranengraved [Fig. 31]111the Kisters
originalwithoutindicatingwhere it was. In 1800 the Colonna replica went to Londonwhere Day bought it and sold it to Angerstein in
1801 with which collectionit was purchased for the NationalGallery
in 1824. Duringmost of this time it was consideredto be a work of
Titian. Gould very tentativelyshifted it to Damiano Mazza on the
basis of Ridolfi'sreference.112It is quite evidentlya replica after the
Kisters collection canvas, and might well be a work of Damiano
Mazza who was recordedonly in a documentof 1573 as at workon
an altar for the parish church at Noale, a picture of similarly
Titianesque character.The theme of the handsome shepherd boy
Ganeymede carried away by Jupiter in the guise of an eagle is
a familiarneo-Platonicone in which the youth is a symbol of the
human spirit transposed from the terrestrialto the celestial realm,
a metaphore of spiritualaspiration.By the Cinquecento its ancient
homoerotic aspect had been revived so that it quite often was
intended to be read on two levels, a spiritualas well as an erotic
one. The angle of view in this ceiling leaves little doubt that
Ganeymede's prominentbuttocks remain a firmly sexual allusion.
The artist, however, approached erotic subjects with a positive
directness that excluded coyly voyeuristicManieratypical of mythological themes fifty years before. It is, nonetheless, perhaps this
explicit homoerotic reference that kept Titian's originalhidden from
publicscruteny for so long. In fact, the artistvirtuallynever suggests
any enthusiasm for a homoerotic undertone in his pictures that
might have been endowed with such a current, a personal preference that might explain a certain lack of convictionin this instance.
The Rape of Ganeymede adds a new and final chapter to
Titian's evolution as an illusionistic ceiling painter. His Vasariinspired but modified di sotto in su spatial construct of the Santo
Spirito in Isola ceilings (Venice, Salute)113of 1542-1543 retained
a stripof landscape along the bottomof each scene in order to stabilize a diagonal recession. The 1559 Sapientia (Venice, Libreria
Marciana)114
opted for a decisively originalsolution, setting the figura serpentinata on a cloudy ledge against the sky but viewing her
frontally.Its radiantpictorialwarmth,so much like that of the last of
Philip's poesie, imposes an harmoneous unity despite this spatial
contradiction. In 1564-1568 the artist combined both earlier
approaches in the three ceiling canvases painted for the
in Brescia where they bured in 1575. It is clear, howMunicipio115
in
that
the
ever,
Triumphof Brescia pictureTitianmade an effortful
to
to terms with GiulioRomano's doctrinaireMantuan
come
attempt
57
W. R. REARICK
i-
.
d*
I
I
;W
.r;
*W
j
1
!*
If
r
V
28) Titian. ((Death of Acteon,. London, National Gallery. X-radiograph.
58
29) Titian. <Death of Acteon>. London, National Gallery.
59
W. R. REARICK
,
>
...
74rz-
30) Titian.(cRapeof Ganeymede,,.Kreuzlingen,Heinz Kisters collection.
60
.-
s
,. .
..,
s.
.-.
31) Gerard Audran, engraving after Titian. <<Rapeof
Ganeymede. (Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale.)
illusionism.The Rape of Ganeymede finallyaccedes to this straight
upward view, a surrendermade easier by the masterfulexample of
Paolo Veronese in the Jupiter Fulminatingthe Vices (Paris, Musee
du Louvre)painted in 1553 for the Palazzo Ducale in Venice. Like
Veronese's ceilings, Titian's Ganeymede harks back in a nostalgic
vein to the years around 1542-1547 when he resisted but leared
from the examples of Pordenone and GiulioRomano. Now his competative instinctis damped and the Manieraillusionismis suddenly
transformedinto a virtuoso expansiveness that seems to foreshadow the ceilings of the Baroque era. Even Correggio's buoyant
empyrean vistas seem to lurk in his memory though he had not
been to Parma for more than thirty years. Correggio's own
Ganeymede (Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum), in which the axis
differs but the pictorialcontrast between the dark eagle and the
luminous nude is the same, seems to have been the subject of
a nostalgic revery of a character increasingly evident in the old
man's later years. Conversely, the doctrinaireManieraas practiced
by the seven younger painters responsible for the 1556 Libreria
Marcianaceiling held no lessons for the old master,116nor was he
disposed to show any interest in Tintoretto's rather chaotic experi-
ments in ceiling decoration. Once again, Veronese studied and
learned from Titian's example; his drawing (London, Duke Ferretti
collection) for a Rape of Ganeymede117 turns the nude figure
around but clearly remembers Titian's compositionin the eagle and
details such as the drapery.The sketch may be dated close to 1583,
a moment in which Paolo is unlikelyto have been influenced by
Damiano Mazza in Padua. The Ganeymede belongs in the pictorial ambience of the second cyce of Titian poesie. Its tonalityhas
darkened from the flickeringdissonances that give the 1556-1562
poesie their edgy brilliance;instead, a lilac melancholy tinges the
rose-lavender of Ganeymede's draperyand even his flesh tone has
a sickley, liverishglow. Brushstrokeis broad and in some passages
such as the draperyend improvisationaland sketchy. Doubtless, its
position high on the ceiling and a private destination encouraged
Ttian to painterlyexperiment. Its visionary light resembles that of
the 1565 Perseus and Andromeda but here the brush stroke is
more continuous, less fragmented,and the strikingdecorative effect
of the almost black eagle's wings against the blue-lilacsky more
carefullycalculated. Just this sort of steady control of his medium
and elegaic restraintof expression marks the Crucifixion(Escorial,
Museo Nuevo) of about 1565. We would, therefore, suggest a similardate for the Ganeymede. We know nothingof the early history
of this ceiling nor who might have commissioned it. Although it is
possible that its evident homoerotictone might have suggested discretion in showing it off to connoisseurs, the conversly lofty neo-platonic importof the theme would have rendered it acceptable in the
most respectable of intellectual circles. If, as seems probable,
Damiano Mazza painted the London replica while he was still in
Titian's studio around 1567, the originalmust have been ready for
consignment shortly before. The presence of yet another version of
this format in Padua in the mid-nineteenthcentury suggests that
Titian's original might have been commissioned by a Paduan
humanist who frequented erudite associations in this university
town. That he might have been Francesco Assonica, a patron of
Titianwho had already commissioned his portraitand a Rest on the
Flight into Egypt, must, in view of the unreliableand contradictory
evidence for those works, remain hypothetical.Since Vasari saw
those pictures without mentioningthe Ganeymede, they must date
priorto the aretine'sVenice visit of 1566.118
In the years between the 1568 letter to MaximilianII and his
death in 1576, the aged master seems to have abandoned any
organized replicationof the poesie painted for PhilipII in the 1550's
and revised in the 1560's Afew of the later treatmentswere repeated by the shop, particularly
by Orazio but perhaps also by Damiano
Mazza, and Venus and Adonis still enjoyed some currecy among
collectors. Titian himself, with ample studio assistance, painted the
Brescia ceilings between 1564 and 1568, and around 1570-1571
he paintedtwo versions of Tarquinand Lucretia(Bordeaux, Musee
des Beaux-Arts; Cambridge, FitzwilliamMuseum)119the second
61
W. R. REARICK
treatmentdestined for Philip II. It never was considered in tandem
withthe poesie and the Spanish monarchseems not to have wanted any furthermythologies. Finally,in a mood of melancholy nostalgia, Titianbegan but left unfinisheda pastoral theme of uncertain
subject (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)120 and a Cupid
Bringer of Harmony (Rotterdam, Boymans-Van Beuningen
Museum).121Finally, and even more mysterious in its origins, he
started yet again a large poesia, the Flaying of Marsyas (Kromeriz,
Archiepiscopal Palace)122which measures 212 x 207 cm. or slightly largerthan the firstset of poesie. We know nothingof why, when,
or for whom it was undertaken,but the fact that it was acquiredby
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, during the first half of the
Seicento suggests that it had been in a Venetian private collection
and was earlieramong the unfinishedpictures left in Titian's studio
at his death. Its subject is the presidingharmonyof divine order victorious over mere mortal artistic aspiration, a musical allegory of
antique originthat is normallydepicted in positivelytriumphalterms.
Titian, however, turs its meaning inwardto conjureup a profound
pessimism, a deeply tragic meditationon the futilityof human art. As
if to place himself simultaneouslyin the role of creator and spectator he depicts himself in the guise of King Midas whose esteem for
the music of the satyr Marsyas earned him ass's ears. Lost in
melancholy reverie, old Titianseems to rememberthe halcyon days
in which his poesie seemed indeed to have been a divine gift.123
1 The content of this paper was first presented publiclyon 6 March,
1996, on the occasion of the reception of a laurea honoris causa at the
Universityof Udine. My warmest thanks go to the collector,who has not only
given his permissionto publishhis Venus andAdonis, but has also provided
2 Severalrecentstudiesof the Feast of the Godsare included
in the
and London,1993.
volumeTitian500, J. Mancaed., Hampshire
3 E. Mattaliano,
"IIBaccanaledi Dosso Dossi: Nuove acquisizioni
Titian500, op. cit.,pp. 359-365.
documentarie,"
4 For the camerinod'alabastro
and Titian'spaintingsfor it, see D.
Goodgal,'The Camerinoof AlfonsoI d'Este,"ArtHistory,I (1978), pp.
of Alfonsod'Este,"The
162-190; C. Hope, 'The 'Camerinod'Alabastro'
(1971),pp. 641-650,712-721;B. L Brown,"On
Magazine,CXIII
Burlington
Bacchanalsby Titianand Rubens, Stockholm,1987, pp.
the Camerino,"
43-56; H. Wethey,The CompletePaintingsof Titian.Ill. TheMythological
andHistorical
Paintings,London,1975, pp. 29-41, 143-153.
5 ForTitian'srevisions
to the Feast of the Godssee D. A. Brown,in
Tiziano,Venice,1990, no. 19, pp. 198-201.
to studyit at lengthin the origaboutit andthe opportunity
ampleinformation
inal.I am equallyindebtedto the following
colleagueswho have been generousin offeringideas, councel,and assistancein procuring
photographs:
DeniseAllen,BeverlyLouiseBrown,DavidAlanBrown,DavidBull,Hugo
KeithChristensen,
SylviaFerino
Chapman,Patrickand Pierrede Charmant,
Pagden,SydneyJ. Freedberg,RonaGoffen,DavidJaffe,FrederichKisters,
RitaParmaBaudille,NicholasPenny,
StefaniaMason,KonradOberhuber,
B. Thompson,
TerisioPignatti,DavidRosand,ArturRosenauer,Carraigh
and FulvioZuliani.
62
TITIAN'S LATER MYTHOLOGIES
6 Paris,Musee du Louvre.Oil on canvas, 196 x 385 cm. Cast in a format dose to but more develped than the Flightinto Egypt (Saint Petersburgh,
The Hermitage)of 1509-1511, the firststage of the PardoVenus includedthe
recliningnude, a revisionof the GiorgioneVenus (Dresden, Gemaldegalerie)
that had been finishedaround1514 by Titianhimself,and the satyr seen from
the back, a motive firstsketched in the drawing(Stone Mountain,Baer collection)of about 1512-1513, and the firststage of the satyrat ight and the nymph
at left,as well as some of the staffagein the middlegroundsuch as the nymph
quoted from the 1512 Concert Champetre (Pars, Musee du Louvre).
the subject
Conceived in the then familiarpastoralmode of Virgil/Sannazzaro,
seems alreadyto have been Jupiter,who in the guise of a satyr, wakens the
sleeping Antiope.Some passages were reworkedsporadicallyuntilabout 1528
when the entiresurface was retouchedand the huntertowardthe left of center
and the Cupidwere added, both in a style relatedto the Death of Saint Peter
Martyr(formerlyVenice, SS. Giovannie Paolo). Littleor nothingwas changed
untilaround1562-1564 when the canvas receivedanothergoing over in which
for its
the hunterwiththe horn and the dogs at left were added in preparation
shipmentto PhilipII as decor for his huntinglodge, El Pardo. For an excellent
recent summaryof the questions that surroundthis problematicpicturesee J.
Habert,in Le Siecle de Titien, Paris, 1993, no. 165, pp. 520-522 C. Hope,
Titian, London, 1980, pp. 123-125, thought that it had been conceived for
AlessandroFamese in 1547 and that it was sent as a giftto PhilipII in 1552.
7 Berlin,Staatiche Museen, Gemaldegalerie.No. 1849. Oil on canvas.
115 x 210 cm. Signed: TITIANUSF. Traceable only to the collection of
Principe Pio di Savoia in the eighteenth century,it is the firstof a series of
later paintings depicting Venus with a musician. E. Schleier, Catalogue of
Paintings. Berlin, Gemildegalerie, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1978, pp. 447-448. H.
Wethey, 1975, no. 48, pp. 197-199, correctlyidentifiedthe Berlinorgan player as Philip,then Crown Prince, but no explanationof when, why, and by
whom it was commissioned is easily posited. R. Giorgi, Tiziano. Venere,
Amore, e il Musicista in cinque quadri, Rome, 1990, pp. 113-117, quite
unconvincinglyidentifiedit as Philip's commission of 1554 on the occasion
of his marriageto MaryTudor. Both the style of the Berlincanvas and the age
of Philip,clearlyyounger than in the 1551 portrait(Madrid,Museo del Prado),
suggests that it was painted in Augsburg during Titian's 1548 sojoum. This
tends to confirmthe possibilitythat it is the version of this subject commissioned by the EmperorCharles V in 1545, a picture cited as finished and
broughtto Augsburgin 1548. When and why it left the Hapsburghcollections
priorto the eighteenth century is unknown.
8 Most authors have insisted, often with a vehemence that distorts the
evidence, that there was from at least 1553 a detailed iconological program
for Titian's poesie for PhilipII and that the literarysources provideda basis
for a predisposed formal and thematic interrelationshipfor the entire cycle.
See M. Tanner, Titian:the "poesie"for Philip II, Ph.D. New York University,
1976 (UniversityMicrofilms,AnnArbor,1983);J. C. Nash, Titian's'poesie'for
Philip II, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University,1981 (UniversityMicrofilms,Ann
Arbor, 1983); P. Fehl, 'Titian and the Olympian Gods: the 'Camerino'for
PhilipII,"in Tiziano e Venezia, Venice, 1980, pp. 139-147.
9 Madrid,Museo del Prado. Oil on canvas, 129 x 180 cm. Titian first
mentionedby name the Danae in his letterto Philipwrittenin the late summer of 1554, commenting that it had already been sent to Spain for the
camerino, that had perhaps been projectedas early as 1551 in Augsburg.
Despite speculation that the Madridcanvas had been painted much earlier,
it seems more likely to have been painted and sent during 1553, see F.
Valcanover, n Le Siecle de Titien, Paris, 1993, no. 177, pp. 533-534.
10 The slight loss along the top marginwould not have broughtit even
close to the standardformatof subsequent poesie.
11 Titian wrote "...e perche la Danae che lo mandai gia a Vostra
Maesta, si vedeva tutta da la parte dinanzi, ho voluto in quest'altra poesia
variaree farle mostrare la contrariaparte, accioche riesca il camerino, dove
hanno da stare, piu grazioso alia vista." In this context it is dear that the
camerino did not imply that an especial room had been designed or even
designated for poesie, but ratherthat Titian assumed, as was the current
fashion, that such pictures were for privatedelectation and not intended for
public reception rooms. For a contraryview see Tanner, 1976, pp. 174-179,
and Nash, 1981, pp. 135-158.
12 E. Panofsky, Problems in Titian:Mostly Iconographic, New York,
1969, pp. 149-168. For an alternativeinterpretationsee Tanner, 1976, pp.
19-134, who gives the most extensive analysis of Titian's literarysources for
the later poesie.
13 C. Greppi,ed., Tizianoe la corte di Spagna, Madrid,1975, p. 42. C.
Fabbro, Tiziano-lelettere, Cadore, 1977, no. 133, p. 169. The pictureis mentioned as well in a letter, Fabbro,1977, no. 135, p. 171, of the same date.
14 Althoughit was more customarythat large canvases be rolledfor shipment,the text of Philip'sletteris unequivocal:the picturehad been foldedin half
withthe resultantdamage along a straighthorizontalline near the center of the
canvas. Had it been rolledand then pressed there would have been a number
of parallelhorizontalstripsof damage at variouspointsacross the surface. One
assumes that it was the royalagent Vargaswho was responsablefor this grave
packing error.He, and not Titian,was the object of Philip'sanger.
15 Cassiano dal Pozzo, Legitione del Signore Cardinale Barbarinoin
Spagna, Rome, Vatican Library,1626, folio 121.
16 Madrid,Museo del Prado, no. 422. Oil on canvas, 186 x 207 cm. No
scholar has expressed doubts that the Prado pictureis the same as the damaged canvas about which Philipcomplainedin his letterfrom London.Almost
all commentatorssee the seam as the fold about whichthe king was angered.
17 I am gratefulto R. Alonso y Alonso, of the ConservationLaboratory
at the Museo del Prado, who confirmedthat the surface irregularityin the
Prado canvas is, indeed, a seam where two lengths of canvas were sewn
together before the paintingwas begun. He also provideduseful information
on its present condition.
18 The Prado Venus and Adonis, unlike many of the paintingsin the
Spanish Royal collection,did not suffer scorchingduringone of the fires that
swept throughthe Alcazar during the seventeenth century. Subsequently, it
underwent restoration in which a significant amount of in-painting was
added. Had the supposed folding damaged been repairedafter the original
arrivedin Englandthis intermediatestage of restorationwould have become
more, not less evident with subsequent treatments.
19 The Madridcanvas today measures 187 cm in height, probably
close to its originaldimension, since there is no visible sign of loss either
above or below. Its width,207 cm., includesan additionof 11 cm. at left.I am
obligedto R. Alonsoy Alonso for these measurements.
20 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 1877, II, pp. 227, 237-239, ascribed it to
Titian in collaborationwith his son Orazio, a clear implication that they
sensed a problem with the picture'squality.C. Hope, Titian, London, 1980,
p. 127, says 'The appeal of the picturelay not only in its sensuality...orin its
technical excellence, but above all in its understatedartifice."Even so acute
a criticas S. J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy 1500 to 1600, Harmondsworth
and Baltimore,1971, pp. 348-349, groups the Venus and Adonis along with
the Perseus and Andromeda (London, Wallace Collection) with works that
"...convey the sense that an extrordinaryreach of classical expression
...(that)...assumes the stature of idea." He then, like Hope, goes on to an
eloquent descriptionof the pictorialqualities of the subsequent poesie.
21 M. Bury, Giulio Sanuto. A Venetian Engraver of the Sixteenth
Century, Edinburgh,1990, no. 2, pp. 11-12.
22 For the most complete discussion of Titian's woodcuts see M.
Muraroand D. Rosand, Tiziano e la silografia veneziana del Cinquecento,
Venice, 1976.
23 Muraro and Rosand, 1976, no. 12, pp. 84-85. Rearick, "Titian
Drawings:a Progress Report,"Artibuset Historiae, XXIII(1991), pp. 17-18.
63
W. R. REARICK
24 G.
Vasari, Le vite de'piu eccelentipittori, ... etc., (ed. Milanesi,1906,
VII,p. 437). Muraroand Rosand, 1976, no. 44, pp. 111-112.
25 This is
especially true of the large, four block Sacrifice of Isaac,
a work assembled from a stock of drawingsas well as prints,not all of them
by Titian.The several woodcuts in which landscape dominates, all produced
in the thirddecade of the century,were composed by Titianhimself,but there
he made use of various pen studies assembled for each project,see W. R.
Rearick,in Le Siecle de Titien, Paris, 1993, pp. 554-555, 565-566.
26 K. Oberhuber,Disegni di Tizianoe della sua cerchia, Venice, 1976,
no. 42, pp. 97-99. Rearick,'TitianDrawings:A Progress Report,"Artibuset
Historiae, XXIII(1991), pp. 21-22. The Louvre drawing has recently been
ascribed entirelyto Cort himself by M. Sellink, Cornelis Cort..., Rotterdam,
1994.
27 Milan, private collection. Pen and brown ink on ivory paper. ca.
222 x 165 mm. Unpublished.
28 The central passage of the inscriptionon Sanuto's engraving reads:
...non di meno havendo lo questo esempio cavato/ da una rariss.pitturadelI'unicoM. Titiano,fatta dalla sua mano al sereniss. e catholico/ FILIPPORe
di Spagna..." Althoughthe terms allow for the technical intermediaryof drawings, this inscriptionclearly indicates that Sanuto had before him the painting done for PhilipIIand not a replica. Thus, at a date at least shortlybefore
21 September, 1559, the Lausannecanvas was in Titian's studio.
29 See M. A. Chiari,1982, no. 30, p. 67; and CatelliIsola, 1976, no. 23,
p. 36.
30 Catelli
Isola, 1976, no's. 12, 13, pp. 34-35.
31 The modern
(post-1800) art historical comments on the present
Venus and Adonis may be summerizedas follows:A. Hume, Notices of the
Lifeand Worksof Titian,London,1829, p. 65, as "Alarge pictureof Venus &
Adonis (by Titian) from the Orleans Gallery,"with details of its gift to
BenjaminWest who sold it to HartDavis for ? 4.000.; exhibitedas by Titian,
London, British Institution,1822; G. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great
Britain,London,1854, III,pp. 178, "Agood school copy of the celebratedpicture in the Museumat Madrid"
(Waagen had had, on his firstvisit,a hard time
gaining access to the picturegalleryat Leigh Courtand complainedof being
rushed throughthe rooms, but duringa second visit he was allowed ample
time to study the collection);J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, Titian.His
Life and Times, London,1877, vol. II, p. 151, who follow a very inaccurate
discriptionof the compositionwith the observationthat 'This copy is by some
old Venetian followerof Titian."It is dear that they believed it was identical
to the later, smaller Venus and Adonis of the Washingtontype; noted as by
Titianin ArtNews, 4 October,1930, p. 14; writtenexpertises, all ascribingthe
paintingto Titianor Titianassisted by a Northernassistant who was responsible for some of the foregroundplants, by A. L. Mayer,1930; D. von Hadeln,
5 September, 1930 (mistakenlydated 1940), quoted in the Helbing Gallery
sale catalogue of 1930; D. von Hadeln,pre-1935;A. Pelzer, Munich,15 July,
1937; K. F. Suter, Leipzig, 23 April, 1941. H. Wethey, The Complete
Paintings of Titian, The Mythologicaland HistoricalPaintings, London, III,
1975, pp. 191-192, as "...probablya replica by Titian's workshop",but he
admittedthat he knew it only from a photograph;M. Bury,GiulioSanuto. A
VenetianEngraverof the Sixteenth Century, Edinburgh,1990, pp. 11-12, as
the source for Sanuto's 1559 engraving. He also knew it only from photographs,and thus prudentlyascribed it to the studio of Titian,while emphasizing that it must have been in the studio in 1559..
32 Lausanne, privatecollection.Oil on canvas, 178 x 200 cm. For its
provenancesee notes 33-45. Its conditionis one of honest, hard wear.The
canvas, made up of two widthssewn togetherat about 96 cm. fromthe present
loweredge, is of the familiarVenetianratherheavy weave texturepreferredby
Ttian. It has lost a very slight stripalong all marginsbut virtuallynone of the
original painted surface. Several small tears in the canvas, particularlyan
extensivelydamaged passage around the head of the foregrounddog, have
64
been repaired.The canvas has been relined,possibly more than once, and
a recent patch has been appliedfromthe back in correspondencewiththe centraldog. The paint surface has undergonegeneral wear from old restorations,
but local abrasionsare evidentin the X-radiographs
in the body of Venus,to the
rightof Adonis's mouth,in his lowerrightarm,and the sky at upperrightAvery
early damage resultedfrom the canvas being folded horizontallyat mid-point,
that is ca. 96 cm. fromthe loweredge, resultingin an irregular
loss of paintsurface about 10 mm. wide along the seamrold.This is most evidentin passages
of heavy impasto such as the flesh areas of the figures.This damage was
inpaintedin a stripabout 8 cm in widthat a date dose to that of the damage.
This restorationhas, in tum, lost flecks of paintsurfaceat a few pointsfor example near to Venus's ear, cear evidence that it has sufferedthe same wear as
the orginal.The surface of the picturehas evidentlybeen ceaned several times
at unrecordeddates, one probablyfairly recently.The smooth gilt frame of
a type used in Rome, recorded in seventeenth century documents, was
replacedwith an early nineteenthcenturygilt frame of Britishworkmanship.
33 Priorto 1689 all mentionsof Titian'spicturesof this subject are without either measurements or detailed descriptions;therefore allowance must
be made for the existance of other versions of the Venus and Adonis in the
same collection.
34 For the ca. 1598 inventorysee Perger, 1864, p. 108 where the picture is listed on folio 38b. For the 1621 inventorysee Zimmerman,1905, p.
XLIII,no. 1054
35 Du Fresne, no. 115.
36 The picture listed in 1662 as measuring eight and a half by nine
palmimay be interpretedas being about 190 x 201 cm. while the Lausanne
picturetoday measures 178 x 200 cm. or about 8 x 9 palmi. It is significant
that the Death of Acteon (London,NationalGallery)was listed in the same
inventoryas being the same size as the Venus and Adonis whereas its
height today is 179 cm., only one centimeterhigherthan the Lausanne canvas. It is only in the 1662 Palazzo Riarioinventorythat we find a clear distinction made among the various pictures representing Venus and Adonis
that belonged to Queen Christina.One incuded three dogs, and was very
close to the dimensions of the Lausanne picturebut differentfrom those of
the Getty Museum canvas, which at 158 x 201 cm. would have been about
7 by 9 palmi. The smaller one seems to have been considered a copy.
37 In the 1689 inventorythe measurements are palmi sei e mezzo e
larga palmi otto for the canvas in the same smooth gilt frame.
38 Althoughthis smaller format might seem better associated with one
of the later reductionsof the theme, the discriptionis dearly that of eitherthe
Lausanne or Getty pictures.The smooth frame suggests the former.
39 J. Couche, Galerie du Palais Royal, Paris, 1786, consisted of two
volumes of etchings after the majorpaintingsin the d'Orleanscollectionwith
comments by the Abbe de Frontenai.Although the collection had already
been dispersed in 1792, publicationresumed in 1808 with a three volume
edition arrangedby school but with the commentaryomitted.The etching of
Titian's Venus andAdonis reproducedthe picturenow in the Getty Museum,
but it gave as its measurements5 pieds 7 pouce x 6 pieds 2 pouces, dimensions that correspondonly with those of the Lausanne canvas. This was evidently an error in transcriptionthat goes back to the 1786 edition. The
Lausanne picture was not reproduced there. C. Stryienski, Le Galerie du
Regent Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, Paris, 1913, gives a detailed discussion of
the contents of the Palais Royal based on its various inventories.
40 This informationwas providedby AbrahamHume, 1829, p. 65, not
always a reliablesource but in this case a virtualeye witness since he was
present at the Lyceum sale of the balance of the collection.The most reasonable explanationfor such a gift to the artist is that it was compensation
for his advice and counsel in giving valuationsfor the paintingsto be sold.
Such a service was often providedin the eighteenth century by distinguished
artists. The standard remunerationin such cases was to allow the evaluator
TITIAN'S LATER MYTHOLOGIES
his choice of a paintingfrom the collectionto be sold. The date of this transaction is suggested by the appearance of the Lausanne canvas in a catalogue of the Miles collectionwith the date of 1798-1809, a span that crresponds exactly with the years of West's ownership. See J. Young, A
Catalogue of the Pictures at Leigh Court,near Bristol;the seat of PhilipJohn
Miles, Esq., M. P., withetchings from the whole Collection, London,1822, p.
4; and H. Von Erffaand A. Staley, The Paintings of Benjamin West, New
Haven, 1986, p. 448.
41 A
photographof this engravingis on file at the Witt Library,London.
42
Panofsky, 1969, pp. 153-154.
43 Wethey, 1975, III,p. 194.
44 Wethey, 1975, III,p. 194.
45 It now seems clear that Jacopo Strada acted as agent for Albrecht
V in the purchase of several picturesby Paolo Veronese in 1567-68, most
notably the splendid suite of mythologicalallegories (New York,The Frick
Collection;New York, MetropolitanMuseum of Art; Cambridge, Fitzwilliam
Museum; etc) and the four allegorical ceilings (London, National Gallery).
The listof Titianpoesie preserved in Albrecht's Municharchive suggests that
these works by Titian were at least offered and perhaps purchased by
Albrecht.They might all have passed to Rudpolphin Prague on Albrecht's
death.
46 When the Pentecost(Venice, Salute), painted in 1541-1542 for the
church of Santo Spiritoin Isola, began to deteriorate,Titian replaced it with
a second version around 1546 or shortly thereafter. See W. R. Rearick,
"TitianDrawings:a Progress Report,"Artibuset Historiae, XXIII(1991), pp.
23-24.
47 For the correspondancesee Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 1875, II, pp.
515-517.
48 The analogous, but not identical, classical quiver in the Louvre
Jupiterand Antiope may have been added to that pictureat about the same
time.
49 Four X-radiographs
of details of the Lausanne canvas were made in
Paris in 1993.
50 The contourof Venus's chin was reduced and the highlightson the
pearls were added after theirfirst indicationof form. Adonis's white shirtwas
brushed in after Venus's arm had been painted.
51 See D. A. Brown,in Tiziano,Venice, 1990, no. 51, pp. 302-305. This
firstversion of the subject was painted very cose to 1555 and shows exact
technical analogies with the Lausanne Venus and Adonis, but less so when
compared with the Prado replica. See also F. Valcanover, in Le Siecle de
Titien, Paris, 1993, no. 178, pp. 534-535.
52 Note in the X-radiograph
of Venus's head the small chips of restoration that have flaked near to her ear and in her hair.The same type of loss
is notable in Adonis's chest band. That both the originalpigment and the
restorationhave suffered the same damage stronglysuggests that they are
nearly coeval.
53 The Jupiter and Antiope was recorded at El Pardo under the title
Danae in 1564, and is almost certainly the canvas vaguely described in
Titian's 1574 letterto AntonioPerez in which he recountsthe picturessent to
the King.See Wethey, 1975, III,pp. 161-162.
54 It is not cear which of the copies after this antique relief might have
been known to Titian, but he had certainlyseen its reflectionin Raphael's
MarriageFeast of Psyche (Rome, Villa Famesina) during his visit to Rome
almost a decade earlier. See Panofsky,1969, p. 151.
55 Commissionedby Charles V in 1551 in Augsburg, the Gloria was
shipped to Flandersjust priorto October, 1554. The Venus and Adonis was
packed and sent to Londonabout a month earlier.The Penitent Magdalene
(Busto Arsizio, Candiani collection), sent to Nicola de Granvelle on
September 15, 1554, shares with that poesia a richlysensuous materialtexture and a very similargolden chromaticrange.
56 L
Dolce, Lettere di diversi eccellentissimi huominiraccolte da diversi libritra le quali se ne leggono molte non piu stampate, Venice, 1554. See
M. Roskill,Dolce's Aretinoand VenetianArtTheoryof the Cinquecento, New
York, 1968, pp. 212-217..
57 The tubular,contemporarytype quiverdepicted in the Lausanne picture was changed in the Prado replicato a rectanglarshape with grottesque
relief decorations on its broad side. This form resembles that of the scabbard, then sometimes described as a quiver, seen in the antiquemarblerelief
called the Throne of Saturn (Venice, Museo Archaeologico). This "erudite"
correctionmight have been suggested by a friendlycriticsuch as Dolce. Both
quivertypes recur in replicas suggesting Titian's lack of convictionin his revision. The classical quiver inserted into the Jupiter and Antiope might date
from 1554 duringthe preparationof the replicaof the Venus and Adonis.
58 At least seven versions of the Penitent Magdalen issued from the
BiriGrande studio over the span between the Granvelleoriginalof 1554 and
Titian's death in 1576. Of them only one example (Saint Petersburg,The
Hermitage)is an autographrevisionby Titianhimself. In the others (Naples,
Capodimonte;etc.) passages of loosely brushed execution, as in the sky and
landscape, altemate with lineardetail, as in the stripedshawl, and bits of lapidarygleam, such as the ointmentjar.Althoughthese jumps in technique are
sometimes due to the presence of more than one assistant in the execution,
it is also typicalof a diligent imitator,who attemptsto adjust his handlingto
what he sees as distinctionsin the model picture.What he cannot ape is the
integrityof vision and painterlycohesion evident in the Busto Arsizioor Saint
Petersburg originals.
59 Wethey, op. cit., 1975, III,pp. 188-194.
60 London, National Gallery,inv. no. 34. Oil on canvas. 177.1 x 187.2
cm. C. Gould, National GalleryCatalogues. The Sixteenth Century Venetian
School, London, 1959, no. 34, pp. 98-102. Wethey, III,1975, no. 41, pp.
190-191. Nicholas Penny kindly made the X-radiographsavailable for my
study.
61 Malibu,J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no. 92.PA.42. Oil on canvas. 160
x 196.5 cm. Christie's,London, December, 1991, no. 85, with provenancein
part conflatedwith that of the Lausanne picture. The J. Paul Getty Museum
Journal, XXI(1993), pp. 117-118. The cleaning and restorationwas carried
out by Andreas Rothe during 1992. I am most gratefulto Denise Allen who
providedme with the photographand X-radiographsmade after treatment.
62 Ridolfi,1648, I, p. 187, described it as a bozzetto and described its
proveance. It was recorded in the Marques of Hamiltoninventoryof 1638
and again in 1648 as measuring2 palmi. Soon after it passed to Archduke
Leopold Wilhelmin Brussels where it was recorded as measuring 3 spann,
1 fingerx 2 spann 9 finger. It seems to have disappearednot long afterward.
63 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 1877, II, pp. 237 and 249. Fabbro, 1977,
no. 198, pp. 268-270.
64 Dolce, Dialogo della Pittura, Venice, 1557 (P. Barocchi ed., Bari,
1960, p. 205, M. Roskill,1968, pp. 193, 336)..
65 Cassiano dal Pozzo, 1626, folio 121.
66 For details relativeto the documented early historyof the Perseus
and Andromedasee J. Ingamells,in The Wallace Collection, London, 1985,
I, pp. 357-358. There its provenance is conflated with that of the second,
Wallace Collection, version.
67 C. Huygens, Werken, XLVI,1888, p. 98, joural entry for 14 June,
1649.
68 For the inventory made on 30 August, 1662, of the estate of
Hesselin see Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 60, XLIX(1957), p. 60.
69 Rearick, Tiziano e il disegno veneziano del suo tempo, Florence,
1976, no. 28, pp. 61-63. Rearick,in Le Siecle de Titien, Paris, 1993, no. 232,
pp. 580-581. A. ChiariMorettoWiel, Tiziano. Corpus dei disegni autografi,
Milan,1989, no. 31, pp. 93-94, thoughtthe associationwith the Andromeda
composition hypothetical. H. Wethey, Titianand His Drawings, Princeton,
65
W. R. REARICK
1987, no. X-2, p. 222, rejects the attributionto Titian, assigning it to an
anonymous Venetian drafltman of the late sixteenth century and misinterpreting my 1976 publication.
70 Ingamells,in The Wallace Collection, 1985, p. 357, argued that the
Van Dyck drawingwas after a lost drawingby Titianin which the figurewas
studied twice. This would be uncharacteristicof Titian's late use of the pen.
71 Rearick, The Artof Paolo Veronese. 1528-1588, Washington, 1988,
no. 86, p. 171. Titian's original,together with Veronese's canvas, exerted
a strikinginfluence on French painters during the years when both were
simultaneouslyvisible in Paris.
72 For the correspondancesee Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 1877, II, pp.
278, 512, 515, and Fabbro,1977, no. 144, pp. 186-187, and no. 149, p. 195.
73 Edinburgh,NationalGalleries of Scotland, Duke of Sutherlandloan.
Oil on canvas, 188 x 206 cm. Signed: TITIANUS.Wethey, 1975, III,no. 10,
pp. 141-142.
74 Engravings after Fountainbleauworks by Primaticciowere already
in wide circulationin Venice by 1550.
75 Edinburgh,NationalGalleries of Scotland, Duke of Sutherlandloan.
Oil on Canvas, 188 x 203 cm. Signed: TITIANUSF. Wethey, 1975, III,no. 9,
pp. 138-141.
76 Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum, no. 168; HamptonCourt, Royal
Colections,no. 47; formerlyVienna, privatecollection;Venice, Pietro Scarpa.
See F. Richardson,Andrea Schiavone, Oxford,1980, no. 262, p. 163; no.
327, pp. 190-191; no. 328, p. 191; no. 333, pp. 194-195. The existance of
Titian's ricordo (see note 77) allows for a wider dating than the 1559 suggested by Richardson, p. 191. Schiavone drew a study (London, British
Museum, no. 1851-3-8-966) for the nymph seen from the back, probablyto
darifythe form that was only partiallyvisible in the Titian.
77 Lausanne, privatecollection.Oil on canvas, 55.2 x 66.5 cm. Pignatti,
"Abbozziand Ricordi: New Observationson Titian's Technique,"in Titian
500, Hanover and London, 1993, pp. 75-81. He lists several other copies
after either the ricordoor the original
78 Ridolfi,1648, I, pp. 188-189 (ed. Hadeln, 1914, I, pp. 206-207).
79 See Pignatti,1993, p. 78. This small copy shows variationsthat correspond with the ricordobut not with the 1559 original.
80 Fabbro, 1977, no. 141,
p. 179.
81
Boston, Isabella Stewart GardnerMuseum, no. P26e1. Oil on canvas, 178 x 205 cm. Signed: TITIANSF. P. Hendy,European andAmerican
Paintings in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1974, pp.
257-260. Wethey, 1975, III,no. 32, pp. 172-175. The glitteryattention to
realisticsurface in the fish suggests that Titiandelegated this detail to one of
the northemassociates known to have assisted him at this time
82 Fabbro,1977, no. 153,
p. 200, and no. 162, p. 212.
83
Despite insistanteffortsto devine an iconographicsignificancein the
arrangementof these pictures,none was intended and we have a record of
them being hung togatheronly in 1584 when they were at least brieflyin the
palace at Aranjuez. By 1626 they were displayed in various parts of the
Alcazar. Fehl, 1980, pp. 139-147, recognized that Titian took the iconographic and formal interrelationsof his poesie into consideration, but he
assumes that both patronand painterenivsioned a fixed and significantspatial environmentfor them. Instead, as he concedes at the end of his essay,
pp. 146-147, its evolutionas a cycle was subject to loose improvisationas
each picturewas added. Certainly,no overallprogramhad been set down at
any point between 1551 and 1562.
84 Wethey, 1975, III,no. 51, pp. 200-201. The unusual double portrait
that X-radiographshave revealed to be under the present paintingwas prepared with a technique comparable with that revealed by the X-radiographs
of the Lausanne Venus and Adonis but ratherdifferentfrom that of the Getty
Museum version of that theme, the Wallace Collection Perseus and
Andromeda, and the NationalGalleryDeath of Adonis.
66
85 For the most
thoroughdiscussion of Strada's role in this transaction
see E. Verheyen, "Jacopo Strada's MantuanDrawings,"Art Bulletin, XLIX
(1967), pp. 62-70.
86 Washington,NationalGalleryof Art,no. 680. Oil on canvas, 106.8 x
136 cm. F R. Shapley,Catalogue of the ItalianPaintings,Washington, 1979,
pp. 492-495. Wethey, 1975, III,no. 44, pp. 193-194. The qualityof this picture
was fullyrevealed by the conservationcarriedout by D. Bull in 1995-1996.
87 Fabbro,1977, no. 164, p. 215. It has not been associated untilnow
with a specific version of this composition.
88 New York,Metropolitan
Museum of Art, no. 49.7.16. Oil on canvas,
106.7 x 133.3 cm. F. Zeri and E. E. Gardner,Italian Paintings. Venetian
School, New York,1973, pp. 81-82. Wethey, 1975, III,no. 43, pp. 192-193.
F. Valcanover, 1993, no. 256, pp. 616-617. There is no record of this picture's provenance priorto its 1804 appearance in Palazzo Mariscotti,Rome.
89 Rome, Galleria Nazionale Palazzo Barberini,no. F. N. 547. Oil on
canvas, 187 x 184 cm. Wethey, 1975, III,no. X-40, p. 223.
90 EmanuelAmbergeris referedto by Titianas his very talentedyoung
pupilin a letterof 1567 in which he proposes to PhilipII an ambitiouscycle
of paintingsof the life of Saint Lawrence,a project never realized.
91 Ridolfi,1648, I, p. 187 (ed. Hadeln, 1914, I, p. 207), understandably
called this a bozzetto.
92 London,The Wallace Collection,no. P-11. See Ingamells,1985, pp.
349-360.
93 Catelli Isola, 1976, no. 38, p. 44. Mattheus Greuter (1564-1568)
copied Cort's engravingin Rome. See CatelliIsola, 1976, no. 64, p. 50.
94 For Ridolfi's reporton Titian's bozzetti see 1648, I, p. 187 (ed.
Hadeln, 1914, I, p. 207).
95 Vienna, KunsthistorischesMuseum, no. 71. Oil on canvas, 183 x
200 cm. Wethey, 1975, III,no. 11, pp. 142-143. Die Gemaldegalerie des
Kunsthistorisches Museums in Wien, Vienna, 1991, p. 124. X-radiographs
reveal that the firstsketched form on the canvas differedfrom the final painting in many details, some of them directlyrelatedto the first,Edinburgh,version. This suggests a sequence in which a ricordoand/or drawings served at
the start of the replicationprocess as was the case with the Perseus and
Amdromedaand the Death of Adonis.
96 Exceptin the case of the Gloria,for which he had Orazio'scomplete
drawingwhich he reversed (see note 26), CorneliusCort allowed all of his
subsequent engravings after Titianto be printedin reverse of the painting.
This is unusual, since most printmakersbegan by reversing the source so
that the reproductionwould preserve the originalsense of the composition.
This suggests that later Cort workeddirectlyfrom the pictureand allowed his
cuttingof the plate to followthat model ratherthan a reversed drawing.
97 Voltelini,1893, XLVII,no. 8804. The version purchased by Christine
of Sweden from Leopold Wilhelm was smaller, ie. six by seven palmi as
opposed to the nine by twelve palmi assigned to della Nave's version. It
mighthave been one of the ricordiafterthe poesie.
98 Q. Boel engraved a Rape of Europafor Teniers' TheatrumPictorium
of 1658 with measurementsof 4 x 6 braccia. This composition is reversed
from the originalwith small figures of Europaand the bull and the group of
handmaidenson the same scale in a vast seascape. Unless the second version made these changes, a shift in figurescale that would have thrownit out
of balance with the other parts of the Maximilian
cyce, they are probablydue
to excessive libertieson Boel's part.
99 Wethey, 1975, III,no. 8, pp. 136-138.
100 London, National Gallery. Oil on canvas, 179 x 198 cm. Wethey,
1975, III,p. 136, reproducedthe X-radiograph.
101 Wethey, The Complete Paintings of Titian. I. The Religious
Paintings, London,1969, no. 12, pp. 72-74. Valcanover, 1993, no. 251, p.
612. Hetzer, voce Vecellio, Tiziano, in Thieme and Becker, Allgemines
Lexikonderbildenden Kunstler, Leipzig,XXXIV(1926), p. 166, attributedthe
for
DeathofActeonto an anonymouspainterhe consideredalso responsible
the NaplesAnnunciation.
102 Titianhad paintedthe prototype
of the PenitentMagdalene(Busto
in 1554, and it was sent to Nicolade Granvelle
Arsizio,Candianicollection)
withthe LausanneVenus
on 15 September,1554, almostsimultaneously
as the
andAdonis.Wethey,I, 1969, no. 124, p. 146. For its identification
Candianipicture see Rearick,"Una 'Maddalena'incompiutadi Paolo
a repliVeronese,'ArteVenetaXLVI(1994),pp.29-30. In1561he undertook
ca forPhilipII,a canvaspurchasedby a VenetiancollectornamedSilviofor
a highprice,a concessionthat requiredthe artistto painta replicafor the
withthe
at this point,contemporary
king.Bothare losttoday.Itwas probably
WashingtonVenusandAdonis,thatthe masterpaintedthe splendidreplica
(Saint Petersburg,Hermitage)that remaineduntilhis death in the shop
whereit servedas modelforat leastfive shop replicas.
103 The firstand onlyentirely
of the
versionof the Adoration
autograph
Magi (Milan,PinacotecaAmbrosiana)was commissionedby Cardinal
d'Esteas a gift intendedfor HenryII of France.Its inceptionmay
Ippolito
visitto Venicein 1556, butthe canvas
probablybe relatedto the Cardinal's
saw it therein 1559
was stillin Titian'sstudiowhenthe Spanishambassador
andsuggestedthatit be sent insteadto PhilipII.The styleof the Milanpainting shows an intemalevolutionstretchingover severalyears, the figures
relatingto worksof ca. 1557-1559andthe vaporouslandscapebelongingto
the same phaseseen in the Rapeof Europaof 1559-1562.Just as he had
of the PenitentMagdalene
done on otheroccasionssuch as the replication
for the Spanishmonarch,Titianretainedthe original,paintinga replica(El
Escorial,Museo Nuevo)with extensiveassistancefromOrazio,a canvas
that he shippedto Spain in 1560. Sometimebeforethe Cardinalfinally
no parwithvirtually
receivedhis picturein 1564 Titian'sworkshopproduced,
fromthe masterhimself,at least threefurtherreplicas(Cleveland,
ticipation
Museumof Art;Madrid,Museo del Prado;Paris, d'Atricollection).See
Wethey,1969, I, pp. 64-68, and Hope,1980,pp. 137, 142.
104 Ourviewthatthe firstpoesia, the PradoDanae,was neverconsidered an integralpartof Philip's
cycleis bore outby the factthatit was pointedly omittedfromthe 1568 list.Nonetheless,Titianand his shop had in the
interimproduceda sequenceof replicasafterit,one of whichmightwellhave
been availableforthe listofferedto Maximilian.
105 The best description
of the aged Titianat workis given by M.
Boschini, Le ricche minere della pittura veneziana, Venice, 1674,
fromPalmail Giovane,an eyeIntroduzione
p. 4 v. who had heardit directly
witness.
106 Although
createa marginof doubt,it
the vagariesof his inventories
is probablethatRudolphownedtwo versionsof VenusandAdonis,a Rape
of Europa,anda DeathofActeon,butnota DianaandCallistosince thatpicture was firstmentionedin Venice in the della Nave collection.We may,
therefore,concludethatthe 1568 cycle was neversold en bloc.
107 The prototype(Berlin,StaatlicheMuseen, Gemaldegalerie.See
in a canvas (Madrid,
Museodel
note 7) of about1551 wouldbe replicated
Prado,no. 421) thatis almostexclusively
shop and cannotbe the 1548 picMuseodel Prado,no.
turedone for CharlesV.A stilllaterreplica(Madrid,
420) is of stillpoorerqualityexceptin the figureof Venus,a passage added
by Titianhimselfaround1564-1566. Its supposed provenancefromthe
Paduahouse of FrancescoAssonicais possiblebut not firmlydocumented.
Finally,Titianpainteda monumentalrevisionof the theme (Cambridge,
Fitzwilliam
Museum)close to 1569-1570, a canvas later in the Prague
a replica(NewYork,
he undertook
galleryof RudolphII.Not long afterward
at his death.In part
Museumof Art)that remainedunfinished
Metropolitan
the workof Orazio,thislastpicturehas a striking
landscapeentirelyby Titian
himself.
108 Kreutzlingen,
HeinzKisterscollection.Oil on canvas,68 x 68 cm.
2 February,
1961,no. 72, as
(octagonalshape). Sold in London,Christie's,
butit is possiblythe picture
its earlyhistoryis not documented,
byTintoretto,
notebookof 1856 as in a privatecollectionin Padua.It
noted in Mundler's
was boughtby the dealerRothmanin 1961 and passed in 1962 to Hans
Wendlandin Pariswhereit was acquiredby its presentownerin the same
it as the originalafterwhichDamianoMazza
year. Kistershimselfidentified
painteda replica(London,NationalGallery)and thoughtthe Audranengraving to be afterhis picture.
109 Kisterssent Wetheya blackand white photograph,
but the latter
deniedthatthe picturewas autograph.
Wethey,1975, III,no. X-16,p. 212.
No subsequentscholarhas discussedit nor has it ever been reproduced.
110 Ridolfi,
1648, I, p. 203 (ed. Hadeln,1914, I, p. 224).
111 The plate is inscribed:Ticienpinxit/G. Audransculp. cum privil.
Reg. GerardAudranwas bor in 1640 and died in 1703. See CatelliIsola,
1976,no.s 122-123,p. 61. Thisengravingis clearlyafterthe Kistersoriginal
and not the Mazzareplica.It makesa mostlysuccessfuleffortto reproduce
and chromatic
Titian'spictorial
range,most notablyin the variegatedfeathers of the eagle. It was, conversely,the Mazza canvas that Domenico
Cunegoengravedwhenit was alreadyin the PalazzoColonnaand had been
piecedout to a squareformat.
112 Gould,1959, no. 32, pp. 55-56, gives a thorough
discussionof the
NicholasPennyhas kindlyinformed
me
replicabutdid not knowthe original.
thatX-radiographs
revealnotablechangesin the positionsof Ganeymede's,
feet, perhapsa false starton Mazza'spart.
113 Wethey,1969, I, no.s 82-84, pp. 120-121.
114 Wethey,1975, III,no. 55, pp. 204-205.
115
Wethey,1975,III,no. L-1,p. 225.
116 Rearick,"Post-Maniera,"
in La ragionee I'arte.Torquato
Tassoe la
RepublicaVeneta,G. Da Pozzoed., Venice,1995, pp. 67-78.
117 R. Cocke,Veronese'sDrawings,London,
1984,no. 110,p. 259. The
decisionto view Ganeymedefromthe frontis probablyconditioned
by an
awarenes of engravingsafter Michelanelo'sRape of Ganeymede(lost,
WindsorCastle).
a copy in the RoyalLibrary,
118 Vasari,1568, (ed. Milanesi,1906, VII,p. 456).
119 Wethey,1975, III,no.s 35, 34, pp. 180-182.
120
Wethey,1975, III, no. 27, pp. 166-167. Panofsky's identification
(1969,pp. 168-171)ofits subjectas Parisand Oenonedoes not carryconviction.
121
Wethey, 1975, III,no. 2, pp. 129-130 The identificationof the sub-
ject of this picture,certainlynot a fragment,is due to Rearick,1988, pp.
of it (Munich,
Alte Pinakothek).
135-136,in relationto Veronese'streatment
122 Wethey,1975 III,no. 16, pp. 153-154.Foran excellentstudyof this
as depictedby Titian,see E. Wyss, TheMythof Apollo
subject,in particular
and Marsyasin the Artof the ItalianRenaissance, Newarkand London,
1996, pp. 133-141.
123 Fora discussionof Titian'svariousselfportraits
see Rearick,'The
del ritratto,
VenetianSelfportrait.
Venice,in
1450-1600",in Le metamorfosi
press.
67

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