Titian: Danaë (1544–1545)
oil on canvas, Capodimonte Museum, Naples.
Courtesy of the Photography Department of the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage for the City and the Museums of Naples and the Royal Palace of Caserta/Luciano Basagni, Fabio Speranza
Italy lends Titian’s “Danaë” to the NGA Washington One of the most sensual paintings of the Italian Renaissance —Titian’s ‘Danaë’ (1544–1545) from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples— is on view from July 1 through November 2, 2014, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.]]>
Source: National Gallery of Art, Washington
The “Danaë” is one of several examples of the genre of erotic mythologies in Western art popularized by Titian. Two other examples of this genre by Titian from the Gallery’s permanent collection—Venus with a Mirror (c. 1555) and Venus and Adonis (c. 1560)—are also on view in the West Building, in gallery M-23.
Commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, the painting was completed during a visit Titian made to Rome in 1545–1546. Wealthy and worldly, Alessandro Farnese was both a distinguished patron of the arts and a notorious womanizer with a mistress (a courtesan named Angela). At a time when ecclesiastics were under fire for their licentious and corrupt ways, it was prudent to transform an all-too-contemporary courtesan into a mythological figure whose nudity was sanctioned by classical precedent.
The Danaë was looted by German troops on behalf of Field Marshal Hermann Göring during the Second World War and was discovered afterward in the Austrian salt mine at Alt Aussee. The canvas was brought to the Munich Central Collecting Point by the so-called “Monuments Men” in 1945 and returned to the Italian government two years later.
The exhibition of Titian’s “Danaë” from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, celebrates the occasion of Italy’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July 1 through December 31, 2014, and is part of Italy in US. It is organized by the National Gallery of Art and the Embassy of Italy, Washington, together with the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, and the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage for the City and the Museums of Naples and the Royal Palace of Caserta. Generous support of the exhibition is provided by Intesa Sanpaolo bank. Additional support is provided by Berlucchi and Ferrero.
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Titian’s ‘The Flight into Egypt’ at the National Gallery of London (exhibition, 2012)
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