Workshop of Tiziano Vecellio, 17th century, Venus with a Mirror

Workshop of Tiziano Vecellio, 17th century

Venus in the mirror

Oil on canvas, 140 x 117 cm

With frame, 153 x 129 cm

The painting in question cleverly takes up the iconography of Titian's Venus with a Mirror, currently housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington and datable to around 1552-1553. The iconographic theme of Venus with a Mirror is one of the most successful in Titian's production: the master from Cadore tackled this theme on around thirty occasions throughout his long career; works depicting this subject, now lost, were once found in the collections of Charles V and the wealthy merchant Niccolò Crasso. The painting currently on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington is considered by art historians to be one of the most successful versions of this subject; it is probably the first time the master from Cadore chose to portray the Greek deity not languidly reclining but in a dressing scene, a type of situation he had already experimented with when portraying several anonymous women. In this case, the pose of the goddess takes up the model of a Venus pudica, probably the so-called Venus de' Medici, then in Rome, which the painter had the opportunity to see during his stay in that city in 1545-1546 "learning from the marvelous ancient stones". Titian himself was the first to recognize the value of this variant of the subject and, after having executed the work, he decided not to sell it but to keep it for himself and to exhibit it in his atelier, located in Venice at the Biri di San Canciano, for more than twenty years. The reason why Titian preserved such a high-quality painting for so long is uncertain, but this Venus may have been a source of inspiration for those who worked for or visited the artist. For members of Titian's workshop, it may have served as a model to admire and imitate; furthermore, the painting may have encouraged visitors to order similar images, serving as a sort of highly functional advertising image ante litteram. It is also due to the prolonged period in which the canvas remained in Titian's Venetian studio that various contemporary or slightly later copies of this painting exist, among which the work in question can certainly be included. Following the death of the master from Cadore and his son Orazio, who worked in his father's studio between the 1570s and 1580s, the painting was purchased by the noble Venetian Barbarigo family, who already owned several Titian paintings in their opulent residence on the Grand Canal, Ca' Barbarigo alla terrazza. It is precisely at Ca' Barbarigo that the two greatest scholars of seventeenth-century Venice, Carlo Ridolfi and Marco Boschini, placed "a Venus up to her knees, gazing at herself in the mirror with two Cupids", unanimously identified by art historians with the painting in question. In the eighteenth century, the Barbarigo collection became a must-see for art-loving travellers and young European aristocrats visiting Venice on the Grand Tour: Cochin describes it as a “school of Titian” and de Brosses mentions the Venus with a Mirror as “parfaitement beaux”. The work, still in the Barbarigo collection in the nineteenth century, is cited in the first official catalogue of the collection, the one drawn up in 1845 by Giovanni Carlo Bevilacqua, who also refers to the presence, in the palace on the Grand Canal, of two paintings by Bellini, thirteen by Giorgione, one by Palma il Vecchio and one by Tintoretto. In 1850 the last heir of the Barbarigo family, having fallen into disgrace, sold various paintings to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. The work was exhibited in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg until the 1930s: in 1930, in order to accumulate foreign currency for the first of the five-year plans for the national economy of the Soviet Union, the Soviet government secretly sold the Venus, along with twenty other masterpieces from the museum, to the American billionaire Andrew Mellon. Six years later, in 1937, Mellon donated his collection of 121 paintings and 21 sculptures, including Titian's splendid Venus with a Mirror, to the American government to form the nucleus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which he founded at his instigation. The Washington Venus, in the careful treatment of the texture of the surfaces and in their tactile sensuality, a typical trait especially in Titian's pictorial production of the 1550s, embodies the ideal of beauty of that era while revealing, rather than covering it, the softness of the goddess's candid flesh wrapped in the red cloth surrounded by gold and silver embroidery and lined with soft fur. The visual success of this popular version of Titian's Venus with a Mirror, which spread through contemporary copies and numerous translated prints, was immense even among the great artists of the following century: particularly relevant in this sense are the versions by Rubens (Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum) and Van Dyck (London, British Museum). The canvas presented here is attributable to the master's workshop: the artist manages to faithfully reinterpret the illustrious model, giving the female figure the same monumentality. The goddess's radiant complexion contrasts sharply with the deep red of the embroidered cloak that partially covers her body and with the green curtain behind her, in an interesting play of light and shadow. Details of particular elegance, taken from the master's masterpiece, coincide with the precious jewels and the elaborate frame of the mirror vigorously held by the two cherubs, here in the interesting variation of the one in the foreground that communicates with the viewer.

For Italy only: with Ars Antiqua it is possible to pay in installments up to a maximum of €7.500 at ZERO INTEREST, for a total of 15 INSTALLMENTS

E.g. Total €4.500 = Monthly installment €300 for 15 months.

E.g. Total €3.600 = Monthly installment €720 for 5 months.

For amounts exceeding €7.500 or for a longer period of time (over 15 installments), we can provide a personalized payment.

Contact us directly to get the best quote.

LIVE

– SUNDAY 17.00pm – 21.00pm Dig.terr. 126 – Sky 824

– Streaming on our website www.arsantiquasrl.com and on our social networks Facebook and Youtube

All the works proposed by Ars Antiqua are sold accompanied by a certificate of authenticity in accordance with the law and an accurate information sheet.

It is possible to see the works directly at the showroom gallery in Milan, in via Pisacane 55 and 57.

We personally organize transport and deliveries of the works, both for Italy and abroad.