Titian: Danaë (after the restoration process)
Oil on canvas, 192.5 cm x 114.6 cm
The Wellington Collection, Apsley House
Titian’s Early Poesie at the Prado Museum Museo del Prado exhibits the first two ‘Poesie’ produced by Titian: ‘Danaë’, from the Wellington Collection at Apsley House, and ‘Venus and Adonis’, belonging to the Museo del Prado. November 19, 2014 – March 1, 2015.]]>
Source: Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado presents “Danaë and Venus and Adonis: Titian’s Early Poesie for Philip II”, an exhibition that showcases the first two “Poesie” created by Titian following their recent restoration. The artist painted these works in the mid-sixteenth century and they can be seen together for the first time since Ferdinand VII presented “Danaë” to the Duke of Wellington as a gift. Alongside these masterpieces, visitors will be able to contemplate another of the versions of “Danaë” belonging to the Museo del Prado, which was created by Titian in around 1565. This work was paired with another work, “Venus and Adonis”, in the “Bóvedas de Tiziano” Halls at the Real Alcázar Collection.
Inspired mainly by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the themes chosen by Titian for these works are portrayed in order to delight the senses and demonstrate the capacity of painting to convey emotions.
The three compositions brought together here testify to the fact that the quality of Titian’s work did not depend so much on chronology, but on the painter’s own endeavour, the identity of the person who commissioned the work and the price that was paid for it. In this respect, in spite of being replicas of previous compositions, the two “Danaë” and “Venus and Adonis” on show are of extraordinary pictorial quality.
Related content
Italy lends Titian’s Danaë to the National Gallery of Washington (news, July 2014)
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