Venus and Adonis (Titian)

The version now in Madrid's Museo del Prado is generally agreed to be the earliest of the surviving versions. Although not certainly documented until 1626,[11] it is generally regarded as the painting documented as despatched to King Philip II of Spain in London (he was then married to Mary Tudor, and in fact not yet King of Spain, but King of England) by Titian in September 1554, as announced in a letter which survives.[12] Philip received it in December, and wrote to a courtier complaining about "a fold made in packing". The Prado picture has a seam where two pieces of canvas were joined "which is indeed now very evident" on the picture.[7]

A theory proposed by William R. (Roger) Rearick was that this first painting was in fact the "Lausanne" version, and Titian subsequently sent another version, the one now in the Prado, but this is rejected by Nicholas Penny and remains controversial.[13] Adonis looks older in this than other versions, and Venus' body is shorter; later versions may have been made by copying the London version, which was retained in the studio in Venice. The Prado version is at least mostly by Titian, though Penny finds the head of Venus "disappointing".[14]

It was part of a series of mythological paintings called "poesie" ("poems") intended for King Philip II of Spain. Venus and Adonis was designed to be viewed alongside Danaë, the first of the poesie, which was delivered in 1553, although they are not same size.[15] A later version of Danaë is now shown in the same room in the Prado, with other Titians.[16]

Titian explained in a letter to Philip that the two paintings would offer contrasting front and rear views of a nude Venus, thus allowing painting to compete with sculpture.[17] This apart, contemporary accounts show the powerful effect these paintings had on male viewers. The squashed bottom of the sitting Venus here was still novel in art and considered exceptionally erotic. The Venetian critic Lodovico Dolce praised (in the Prado version) the "marvellous piece of dexterity ... in that one recognises in her hindmost parts here the distension of the flesh caused by sitting ... there is no man so sharp of sight and discernment that he does not believe when he sees her that she is alive; no one so chilled by age or so hard in his makeup that he does not feel himself growing warm and tender, and the whole of his blood stirring in his veins."[18]

J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu

That the female tries to physically restrain her lover from leaving her was also novel and effective, a gesture, not in any of Titian's sources, which by "transferring Venus's sense of loss at Adonis's death to his departure" brings "the two halves of the story together in a single moment of love and loss".[19]

Writing of this and Titian's other mythological paintings from the same years, Sydney Joseph Freedberg said they "convey the sense that an extraordinary reach of classical expression has been achieved in them, as sensuous experience, as much as that of the spirit and the mind, assumes the stature of idea. ... As overt decorative virtue yields to depth of meaning in these works colour becomes quieter, but in compensation is infused by the rougher vibrance taken on by light".[20]

Now in a private collection, it was sold at Christie's in 1998, having formerly been in Lausanne. It has been loaned to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The death of Adonis is included in the background, and the figure in the chariot in the sky is certainly Venus as it is pulled by swans, a traditional attribute.[6] William R. (Roger) Rearick has suggested that this painting is the first version sent to Philip II of Spain in the 1550s, about whose condition Philip complained on arrival, perhaps mistaking a seam in the canvas for a fold. According to this hypothesis, the "Lausanne" painting was returned to Venice, and replaced by the version now in Madrid. Penny is unconvinced by these "extraordinary claims", seeing it as a repetition based on the London version.[21]

It was certainly in the Orleans Collection, and was very probably before that one of the two versions in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden in Rome, and looted by the Swedes from the collection of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in Prague Castle in 1648. After the Orleans Collection was dispersed, it belonged to the artist Benjamin West.[6] In 2007 it was exhibited for the first time in 200 years (other than before the auction) at an exhibition of Titian paintings in Belluno.

Dated c. 1554 and attributed to Titian's workshop, although the master himself may have done the "bold underdrawing", and painted the head of Adonis and Venus' hair.[22]

Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

Penny proposes that it was the "studio model" kept in Venice when the Prado version was sent to Madrid, and including minor improvements to the composition, which can then be seen being followed in later versions (of the Prado type), that were made by copying it. These would include the Getty, Lausanne and Rome versions, which have the main features in sufficiently identical positions to the London version to have been traced from it, which would not have worked from the Prado version. But the composition continued to develop and there are details and similarities between the Prado and London versions which are not shared by others. These include the following: Adonis has no undergarment covering his shoulder and upper arm (to the right); Venus does not sit on a white cloth; the mouth of the vessel faces away from the viewer. Conversely, examples of details not in the Prado version, but in the London and other versions are the string of pearls in Venus' hair, and a larger gap between Adonis' face and the strap over his chest.[23]

It cannot be traced back further than the Salviati collection in the 17th century. It was one of thirty-eight paintings from John Julius Angerstein's collection acquired by the British government in 1824 for £57,000 which formed the original nucleus of the National Gallery.[24]

The version in the J. Paul Getty Museum, is dated to 1555–60. The museum attribute it to Titian, though others are not so sure. Penny sees it as a workshop replica based on the London version, but "a good case could be made for his intervention" in places, such as "the painting of the tremulous lights" on the cloth Venus sits on.[25]

Its provenance begins in an inventory of 1648 in Genoa, and then includes Christina of Sweden and the Orleans Collection. Like most of the collection, it was bought by a consortium in London after the French Revolution. It was selected by a member of the consortium, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, as part of his share, although he did not keep it long. From 1844 to 1991 it was in the collection of successive Earls of Normanton and relatives. The museum acquired the painting in 1992.[26]

The Dulwich version, with hat, by Titian's workshop.

The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini) in Rome has a version supposedly executed around 1560. It gives Adonis a jaunty hat with a feather which is also seen in the Dulwich version below, and a reduced (much smaller) version at Alnwick Castle, once thought to be Titian's modello, an idea now discounted.[6] The Titian scholar Harold Wethey called the hat "ridiculous" and "preposterous", and considered Titian had no hand in the Rome version, a "mediocre school piece".[27]

According to Nicholas Penny this was "almost certainly" not one of the two versions in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden in Rome, as is often claimed. He says these are the "Lausanne version" and the Getty version.[6] It was owned by the Russian emperor Paul I. It returned to Italy from Saint Petersburg thanks to the Venetian merchant Pietro Concolo, to be eventually bought by the Roman Giovanni Torlonia, 1st Prince of Civitella-Cesi. In 1862 it was acquired by the collection of Palazzo Barberini, now the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica.

Another version with the hat. The museum says: "Recent conservation work has enabled us to confirm that rather than being a late 17th-century copy, this painting is very likely to have been made in Titian's workshop in the second half of the 16th century." It is dated 1554–1576, and has been in the museum since 1811.[28]

At least one other version may well be from Titian's workshop. One was long at Rokeby Park and sold at Christie's on 10 July 2003, going to a private collection. It is now at Hatchlands Park in Surrey, a National Trust property.[29] This has been damaged and overpainted, but might have been another version kept as a studio model, as with the London version.[23] A version in a Moscow private collection said to date from 1542–46 has recently been promoted from status as a copy, and would represent the earliest known version of the Prado type, from some ten years earlier.[30]

Engraving by Raphael Sadeler II, 1610, based on Washington.

Dated c. 1560, and attributed by them to Titian. To Penny it seems "largely autograph" (by Titian himself), and from the various differences in detail he suggests it was "planned, if not painted, at the same time as [the Prado version, that is 1554] or perhaps a little earlier". It was engraved by Raphael Sadeler II in 1610.[25] Alone among the versions described here, a small spring or stream falls to the left of the figures. Owned by Anne Russell Digby, wife of George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol, it was inherited by the Spencer family in 1685, in whose hands it remained until 1924. It was then sold to various British and American art dealers, and acquired in 1942 by the National Gallery of Art.[33]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a Farnese type version, with minor differences, of which they say: "This version was painted at the end of his career and its high quality shows that it was carried out by the artist himself."[34] Penny thinks that it is "partly" by Titian.[25] It was formerly in the collection of the Earls of Darnley.[35]