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Lot Essay
Titian is unquestionably one of the most celebrated of Venetian Renaissance artists. Immensely successful during his lifetime, he produced major commissions for royal and noble patrons throughout Italy and abroad, including works for Pope Paul III and King Philip II of Spain. His transformative artistic influence would have a profound effect on future artistic titans from Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velazquez through Edouard Manet and Jeff Koons. The present painting, by a yet-unidentified artist from Northern Europe, relates to a series of paintings by Titian in which beautiful women accompanied by mirrors are presented to the viewer. It is virtually identical in its composition to Titian’s Lady with a mirror in the Louvre, Paris, of circa 1515 (fig. 1), with the critical difference that here the woman is nude, whereas in the Paris painting she is dressed.
Although the commission and earliest provenance of the Louvre Lady with a mirror is unknown, the painting likely entered the Gonzaga collection in Mantua shortly after 1523, when the artist started working with the Mantuan dukes (A. Ballarin, Le siècle de Titien: L’âge d’or de la peinture à Venise, Paris, 1993, p. 363). In 1627, the Gonzagas sold the painting to Charles I of England. The king may have given the painting to Anthony van Dyck since a version of the composition was recorded in the 1644 inventory of the artist’s estate. If van Dyck did own the painting, Charles I presumably reacquired the painting following the artist’s death, since it was sold out of the royal collection following Charles I’s execution (H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, Complete Edition, III, The Mythological and Historical Paintings, London, 1975, p. 163). The painting was then acquired by the Cologne-born banker and merchant Everhard Jabach, who was forced to sell it to Louis XIV of France in 1671. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Louvre painting was understood to represent a number of fanciful and romantic subjects, with the figures variously identified as Titian with his lover Violante; Alfonso-d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, with his mistress and future wife, Laura Dianti; and Federico Gonzaga and his lover, Isabella Boschetti.
Painted on a panel of slightly larger dimensions than that of the Louvre picture, our painting is of considerable quality and likely records a lost composition by the master himself. The painting depicts an alluring nude woman who gathers her wavy, gold-tinged hair in one hand while using the other to touch a glass perfume bottle resting on a table. A handsome, bearded man dressed in red velvet appears behind her, dynamically posed. He gazes at her with admiration, resting his left hand on a large convex mirror that allows the viewer to see the lady’s back, while presenting her with a smaller, flat mirror with his right hand. Elise Goodman-Soellner has convincingly argued that, while by the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance the mirror was often associated with Vanity and Luxury, in this case Titian drew inspiration from poetic ideals of love and beauty as expressed in the works of Petrarch, Ariosto, Bembo and others. In such literature, suitors are often described as holding up a mirror to their lady’s face so that she might admire her beauty (E. Goodman-Soellner, 'Poetic Interpretations of the "Lady at Her Toilette" Theme in Sixteenth-Century Painting', The Sixteenth Century Journal, XIV, no. 4, Winter 1983, p. 436). The walnut support may indicate that our painting was produced somewhere north of the alps, since that species of wood was seldomly employed by Italian painters. Indeed, several stylistic elements in the present work suggest that it was painted by an artist who had trained outside of Italy, including the overall sculptural handling of the figure's anatomy. At the same time, other aspects point to an awareness of artistic techniques favored on the peninsula, such as the brushwork, which is quite free in places, as well as the distinctive palette, which employs pinks, purples and oranges.
The theory that our painting was made in Italy by a northerner, whether from Germany, France or the Netherlands, is supported by the existence of another highly-refined variant of the Louvre picture which was painted by the Nuremberg artist Barthel Behem (fig. 2; Kunstsammlungen und Museen, Augsburg). Signed with the artist’s initials ‘B.B.’ and dated 1534, Beham’s version portrays the lady attired in the same clothes she wears in the Paris painting, but replaces her male suitor with a female attendant. Beham appears to have traveled to Italy and his early biographers recount that he died there in 1540, so it is possible that he saw Titian’s original version while it was in Mantua. At the same time, the existence of other contemporary copies, most notably those in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, and Prague Castle, Prague (which includes a female attendant), combined with the fact that Titian’s paintings were highly prized throughout Europe, opens the possibility that versions of Titian’s compositions would have been available to the author of the present painting outside of Italy.
Infra-red reflectography (IRR) of the present painting reveals delicately-rendered underdrawing (fig. 3; see facing page). The artist drew in the outlines of the hands, arms and shoulders as well as the facial features of the two figures with great confidence. The details of the hair and drapery folds were added with more vigorous and agitated lines. Though few changes are visible to the composition, the artist clearly shifted the position of the torso and breasts. It is perhaps not surprising that the artist made adjustments to his composition in precisely this area, since it is the figure’s nudity that most distinguishes our painting from Titian’s version in Paris. Other nude versions and variants of Titian’s composition are known, however, including the Allegory of Love from the Workshop of Titian in the National Gallery (fig. 4), whose underdrawing corresponds in composition to the present painting; a panel that sold at Christie’s, London, 14 May 1971, no. 24 as 'Flemish School' (formerly in the collections of Prince Ourasoff, Prince Menschikoff and Pierre Bezine (sold Fievez, Brussels, 14 June 1928, lot 124, as Paris Bordone)); a panel that was offered at Christie’s, South Kensington, 9 July 2010, lot 45, as 'After Titian'; and a painting that sold at the Dorotheum, Vienna, 18-19 May 1992, lot 65, as 'Attributed to Michiel Coxie'.
Future research may be able to clarify Titian’s role in the development of the variants of his composition. For now, the existence of so many paintings in which the lady appears nude, combined with the underdrawing of the studio variant in Washington, suggests that they may correspond to an autograph painting by Titian that remains untraced.
The recent cleaning revealed the existence of an old inscription in the upper left blank background which read 'FRANCOISE DE LAVAL / MARIEE AVEC ENNEMOND / DE JUGE IANNEE 1532'. Ennemond de Juge (1481-1529) did indeed marry Françoise de Laval, though evidently some years earlier than indicated by the inscription (de Juge had been dead for three years by 1532). The couple may have been resident in Lyon, where they gave birth to one child, Claude (1529-1600), who would become Conseiller du Roi and Trésorier près les Ligues Suisses.
Although the commission and earliest provenance of the Louvre Lady with a mirror is unknown, the painting likely entered the Gonzaga collection in Mantua shortly after 1523, when the artist started working with the Mantuan dukes (A. Ballarin, Le siècle de Titien: L’âge d’or de la peinture à Venise, Paris, 1993, p. 363). In 1627, the Gonzagas sold the painting to Charles I of England. The king may have given the painting to Anthony van Dyck since a version of the composition was recorded in the 1644 inventory of the artist’s estate. If van Dyck did own the painting, Charles I presumably reacquired the painting following the artist’s death, since it was sold out of the royal collection following Charles I’s execution (H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, Complete Edition, III, The Mythological and Historical Paintings, London, 1975, p. 163). The painting was then acquired by the Cologne-born banker and merchant Everhard Jabach, who was forced to sell it to Louis XIV of France in 1671. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Louvre painting was understood to represent a number of fanciful and romantic subjects, with the figures variously identified as Titian with his lover Violante; Alfonso-d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, with his mistress and future wife, Laura Dianti; and Federico Gonzaga and his lover, Isabella Boschetti.
Painted on a panel of slightly larger dimensions than that of the Louvre picture, our painting is of considerable quality and likely records a lost composition by the master himself. The painting depicts an alluring nude woman who gathers her wavy, gold-tinged hair in one hand while using the other to touch a glass perfume bottle resting on a table. A handsome, bearded man dressed in red velvet appears behind her, dynamically posed. He gazes at her with admiration, resting his left hand on a large convex mirror that allows the viewer to see the lady’s back, while presenting her with a smaller, flat mirror with his right hand. Elise Goodman-Soellner has convincingly argued that, while by the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance the mirror was often associated with Vanity and Luxury, in this case Titian drew inspiration from poetic ideals of love and beauty as expressed in the works of Petrarch, Ariosto, Bembo and others. In such literature, suitors are often described as holding up a mirror to their lady’s face so that she might admire her beauty (E. Goodman-Soellner, 'Poetic Interpretations of the "Lady at Her Toilette" Theme in Sixteenth-Century Painting', The Sixteenth Century Journal, XIV, no. 4, Winter 1983, p. 436). The walnut support may indicate that our painting was produced somewhere north of the alps, since that species of wood was seldomly employed by Italian painters. Indeed, several stylistic elements in the present work suggest that it was painted by an artist who had trained outside of Italy, including the overall sculptural handling of the figure's anatomy. At the same time, other aspects point to an awareness of artistic techniques favored on the peninsula, such as the brushwork, which is quite free in places, as well as the distinctive palette, which employs pinks, purples and oranges.
The theory that our painting was made in Italy by a northerner, whether from Germany, France or the Netherlands, is supported by the existence of another highly-refined variant of the Louvre picture which was painted by the Nuremberg artist Barthel Behem (fig. 2; Kunstsammlungen und Museen, Augsburg). Signed with the artist’s initials ‘B.B.’ and dated 1534, Beham’s version portrays the lady attired in the same clothes she wears in the Paris painting, but replaces her male suitor with a female attendant. Beham appears to have traveled to Italy and his early biographers recount that he died there in 1540, so it is possible that he saw Titian’s original version while it was in Mantua. At the same time, the existence of other contemporary copies, most notably those in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, and Prague Castle, Prague (which includes a female attendant), combined with the fact that Titian’s paintings were highly prized throughout Europe, opens the possibility that versions of Titian’s compositions would have been available to the author of the present painting outside of Italy.
Infra-red reflectography (IRR) of the present painting reveals delicately-rendered underdrawing (fig. 3; see facing page). The artist drew in the outlines of the hands, arms and shoulders as well as the facial features of the two figures with great confidence. The details of the hair and drapery folds were added with more vigorous and agitated lines. Though few changes are visible to the composition, the artist clearly shifted the position of the torso and breasts. It is perhaps not surprising that the artist made adjustments to his composition in precisely this area, since it is the figure’s nudity that most distinguishes our painting from Titian’s version in Paris. Other nude versions and variants of Titian’s composition are known, however, including the Allegory of Love from the Workshop of Titian in the National Gallery (fig. 4), whose underdrawing corresponds in composition to the present painting; a panel that sold at Christie’s, London, 14 May 1971, no. 24 as 'Flemish School' (formerly in the collections of Prince Ourasoff, Prince Menschikoff and Pierre Bezine (sold Fievez, Brussels, 14 June 1928, lot 124, as Paris Bordone)); a panel that was offered at Christie’s, South Kensington, 9 July 2010, lot 45, as 'After Titian'; and a painting that sold at the Dorotheum, Vienna, 18-19 May 1992, lot 65, as 'Attributed to Michiel Coxie'.
Future research may be able to clarify Titian’s role in the development of the variants of his composition. For now, the existence of so many paintings in which the lady appears nude, combined with the underdrawing of the studio variant in Washington, suggests that they may correspond to an autograph painting by Titian that remains untraced.
The recent cleaning revealed the existence of an old inscription in the upper left blank background which read 'FRANCOISE DE LAVAL / MARIEE AVEC ENNEMOND / DE JUGE IANNEE 1532'. Ennemond de Juge (1481-1529) did indeed marry Françoise de Laval, though evidently some years earlier than indicated by the inscription (de Juge had been dead for three years by 1532). The couple may have been resident in Lyon, where they gave birth to one child, Claude (1529-1600), who would become Conseiller du Roi and Trésorier près les Ligues Suisses.