Allegory of Love
c. 1520/1540
Painter
In contrast to the man with whom she shares this outdoor scene, the female figure is incongruously naked. Her features seem generalized. Rather than a specific person, she may have been intended to represent an idealized, anonymous lover.
This painting has significant compositional similarities to a Titian painting in the Louvre called Woman with a Mirror (c. 1515). Allegory of Love may have been begun by an artist from Titian’s workshop after the master’s completion of Woman with a Mirror. Examination of the paint layers under the surface shows that the original composition included some details present in the Louvre painting—for example, the man’s left arm was placed higher, presumably to hold a circular mirror above the woman’s left shoulder, and his right hand held the rectangular mirror from the side rather than from below. Such changes suggest that the painter had access to Titian’s designs.
The man’s costume provides clues about the period in which the artist produced this work. The doublet, with its short, pleated skirt, resembles a fashion dating from at least a decade after the Louvre picture; the pleated collar and cuffs of the shirt and the cut of the hair and beard also did not become fashionable until the mid-1520s. Probably, therefore, the painter adapted Titian’s design, perhaps in the form of an underdrawing begun circa 1515–1520, and completed it at some date in the 1530s.
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
overall: 91.4 x 81.9 cm (36 x 32 1/4 in.)
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Accession
1939.1.259
More About this Artwork
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Counts Benacosi, Ferrara;[1] on consignment 1815 with Count Leopoldo Cicognara, Venice; sold 1815 to Charles William Vane, Lord Stewart [1778-1854, later 3rd marquess of Londonderry], but returned 1816 to Cicognara;[2] sold after 1821 to James-Alexandre, comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier [1776-1855], Paris; (Pourtalès-Gorgier sale, Paris, 27 March-4 April 1865, no. 118); purchased by Comte Charles de Pourtalès, Paris. private collection, England;[3] Baron Michele Lazzaroni, Paris and Rome; sold March 1920 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[4] purchased February 1922 by Henry Goldman [1857-1937], New York, until at least 1933.[5] (Duveen Brothers, Inc.); sold March 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[6] gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] These owners are first mentioned in the catalogue of the Pourtalès-Gorgier sale: Catalogue des Tableaux Anciens et Modernes Dessins qui composent les Collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, Paris, 1865: 43-44, no. 118. According to Vittorio Malamani, Memorie del Conte Leopoldo Cicognara, 2 vols., Venice, 1888: 2:113-114, the painting was found by Cicognara in the attic of an old house in Ferrara.
[2] Vittorio Malamani, Memorie del Conte Leopoldo Cicognara, 2 vols., Venice, 1888: 2: 113-114, 125-133. Stewart’s brief ownership is also recorded in a seal bearing his coat of arms now affixed to the stretcher of the relined canvas. Ross Watson identified the seal in 1971; see his notes in NGA curatorial files.
[3] The Paris branch of Duveen Brothers wrote to the New York branch on 29 December 1920, describing the visits of Henry Goldman (they spell the name Goldmann) to see "the Titian" and, after Goldman asked them where the picture "had turned up," their telling him "that Lazzaroni, who was an amateur and had been studying Titian for some years, having spent some years tracing it from the time it left the Pourtalès Collection, had found the picture in England" (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II.I, Collector's files, reel 312, box 457, folder 1 [Goldman #1, 1911-1925], copy in NGA curatorial files).
[4] Duveen records document their possession of the painting: it is entered under Lazzaroni's name on 26 March 1920 in their Paris ledger, and the earliest date listed in the "X Book" entry for the painting is 30 September 1920, where it is described as "Painting by Titian, 'Lady at Toilet', ex Baron Lazzaroni" (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series I.C. Business records, Paris House, reel 27, box 75, Paris ledger 3, June 1917-May 1922, page 372; Series V. Duveen Brothers records at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, reel 422 [Berenson X book, 1910-1927]; copies in NGA curatorial files).
[5] The invoice for the painting is dated 3 February 1922, and Goldman responded the same day, outlining his plan to pay the price in three installments no later than 10 October 1924 (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II.I, Collector's files, reel 312, box 457, folder 1 [Goldman #1, 1911-1925], copy in NGA curatorial files). The painting was published later the same year: Wilhelm R. Valentiner, “Ein unbekanntes Meisterwerk Tizians,” Belvedere 1 (1922): 91; Wilhelm R. Valentiner, The Henry Goldman Collection, New York, 1922: no. 6. It continued to be published as in the Goldman collection by both Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford, 1932: 573, and Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, trans. Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott, 3 vols., New York and Milan, 1933: 3:no. 508.
[6] The invoice for 24 paintings, including "An Oil Painting on Canvas representing Alfonso D'Este and Laura Dianti known as A Lady at a Mirror - by Titian," is dated 9 March 1937. Payment was to be made in five installments, the last no later than 5 May 1938. (Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II.I, Collector's files, reel 329, box 474, folder 5 [Kress, Samuel Henry, c. 1936-1939]; copies in NGA curatorial files.) See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/190.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1924
Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 33 as by Titian (no. 46, as The Toilet of Venus in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue).
1939
Classics of the Nude: Loan Exhibition, Pollaiuolo to Picasso, for the Benefit of the Lisa Day Nursery, M. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1939, no. 4, repro.
1989
Image and Word, Elizabeth Myers Mitchell Art Gallery, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, 1989, no. 14.
Bibliography
1816
Cicognara, Leopoldo. Relazione di due quadri di Tiziano Vecelli. Venice, 1816: 3-14.
1817
Ticozzi, Stefano. Vite dei pittori Vecelli di Cadore. Milan, 1817: 52-64.
1865
Catalogue des Tableaux Anciens et Modernes Dessins qui composent les Collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier. Paris, 1865: 43-44, no. 118.
1869
Villot, Frédéric. Notice des tableaux exposés dans les galéries du Musée Impérial du Louvre. Paris, 1869: 289.
1874
Campori, Giuseppe. “Tiziano e gli Estensi.” Nuova Antologia 12 (1874): 614.
1877
Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Titian, His Life and Times. 2 vols. London, 1877: 1:268-269.
1888
Malamani, Vittorio. Memorie del Conte Leopoldo Cicognara. 2 vols. Venice, 1888: 2:113-114, 125-133.
1901
Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 9, part 3(1928):230-234.
1904
Gronau, Georg. Titian. London, 1904: 285.
1907
Gronau, Georg. “Tizians Selbstbildnis in der Berliner Galerie.” Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 28 (1907): 45.
1908
Justi, Carl. Miscellaneen aus drei Jahrhunderten spanischen Kunstlebens. 2 vols. Berlin, 1908: 2:169.
1913
Ricci, Seymour de. Description raisonnée des peintures du Louvre. Paris, 1913: 163-164.
1922
Waldmann, Emil. Tizian. Berlin, 1922: 217-218.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. The Henry Goldman Collection. New York, 1922: no. 6.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. “Ein unbekanntes Meisterwerk Tizians.” Belvedere 1 (1922): 91.
1924
Fischel, Oskar. Tizian: Des Meisters Gemälde. 5th ed. Stuttgart, 1924: 306.
1926
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. A Catalogue of Early Italian Paintings Exhibited at the Duveen Galleries, April to May 1924. New York, 1926: n.p., no. 46, repro.
1928
Heinemann, Fritz. Tizian. Munich, 1928: 49-52.
1932
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 573.
1933
Suida, Wilhelm. Tizian. Zürich and Leipzig, 1933: 30, 158 no. 121a.
Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 3:no. 508.
1935
Dussler, Luitpold. “Tizian-Ausstellung in Venedig.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 4 (1935): 237.
1937
Tietze, Hans. Titian: Paintings and Drawings. Vienna, 1937: 89, 303.
1941
Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 154, repro., as Alfonso d'Este and Laura Dianti [Presumed] by Titian.
Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 197, no. 370, as by Titian.
1942
Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 247, repro. 199, as by Titian.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 66, color repro., as by Titian.
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 52, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 102, repro., as by Titian.
1946
Riggs, Arthur Stanley. Titian the Magnificent and the Venice of His Day. New York, 1946: 96.
1950
Tietze, Hans. Titian. The Paintings and Drawings. London, 1950: 402.
1957
Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:192.
1960
Valcanover, Francesco. Tutta la pittura di Tiziano. 2 vols. Milan, 1960: 1:97.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 129.
1966
Tschmelitsch, Günther. Harmonia est Discordia Concors. Vienna, 1966: n.p.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 116, repro.
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 189-190, fig. 436.
1969
Valcanover, Francesco. L’opera completa di Tiziano. Milan, 1969: no. 53.
Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Tiziano. 2 vols. Florence, 1969: 1:246.
Zeri, Federico. "Review of Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. Italian Schools XV-XVI Century by Fern Rusk Shapley." The Burlington Magazine 111 (1969): 455.
Wethey, Harold. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. London, 1969-1975: 3(1975):212-213.
1972
Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 203, 542, 645.
1979
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:498-500; 2:pl. 354.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 399, repro.
Longhi, Roberto. Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana (1946). Rev. ed. Florence, 1985: 234.
1993
Le Siècle de Titien. L’Âge d’Or de la Peinture à Venise. Exh. cat. Grand Palais, Paris, 1993: 363.
1997
Goffen, Rona. Titian's Women. New Haven and London, 1997: no. 44, repro.
Santore, Cathy. "The Tools of Venus." in Renaissance Studies 11, no. 3. The Society for Renaissance Studies, Oxford University Press, 1997: 184-185, repro. no. 6.
Schäpers, Petra. Die junge Frau bei der Toilette: Ein Bildthema im venezianischen Cinquecento. Frankfurt, 1997: 130-132.
2001
Pedrocco, Filippo. Titian: The Complete Paintings. New York, 2001: 101.
2008
Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria. Colori d’Amore. Parole, Gesti e Carezze nella Pitture Veneziana del Cinquecento. Treviso, 2008: 99, 107-108.
2014
Joannides, Paul, and Rupert Featherstone. “A Painting by Titian from the Spanish Royal Collection at Apsley House, London.” Hamilton Kerr Institute Bulletin 5 (2014): 73-74.
Wikidata ID
Q20174456