Danae 154nude - Titian Oil Painting for Sale

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Danae 154nude: Titian

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Titian Oil Painting - Danae 154nude

Keywords: Danae, nude

Work Overview: Danaë Receiving the Golden Rain (Danaë with Nursemaid)
TITIAN
1560s
Oil on canvas
129.8 x 181.2 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

The first Poesie presented to Prince Philip were Danaë (1553, The Wellington Collection) and Venus and Adonis (1554, Museo del Prado, P422), versions of other previous works, but endowed with all the prestige of the commissioning party. In turn, these works became models for numerous replicas (Danaë receiving the Golden Rain, 1560-65, Museo del Prado, P425).

Danaë depicts the moment in which Jupiter possesses the princess in the form of golden rain. Titian painted his first Danaë in Rome in 1544-45 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, in reference to the Cardinal´s love affair with a courtesan. This Danaë was the model for the version created for Philip II, in which Cupid was replaced by an old nursemaid, whose inclusion enriched the painting by creating a series of sophisticated counterpoints: youth versus old age; beauty versus loyalty; a nude figure versus a dressed figure.

Philip II received this work (Danaë, The Wellington Collection) in 1553 and it was kept in the Spanish Royal Collection, first at the Alcázar and, subsequently, at the Buen Retiro Palace, until Ferdinand VII presented the work to the Duke of Wellington following the Peninsula War. Its original size was similar to that of Venus and Adonis, but at the end of the 18th century, the upper third of the painting was removed for reasons of preservation. Historical descriptions and a Flemish copy reveal that the upper section included Jupiter´s face and an eagle with bolts of lightning, both attributes of this particular god.

A few years later, in 1565, Titian painted the Danaë that belongs to the Museo del Prado, a work featuring a looser execution and an extraordinary quality. It was acquired by Velázquez, to whom in 1634 Jerónimo de Villanueva paid 1000 ducats for eighteen paintings para el adorno del Buen Retiro, among them la Dánae de Tiziano. From another, undated document, which records the physical delivery of the paintings to Villanueva, we know that this Danaë had a horizontal format, very different from the near-square of the version painted for Philip II. Velázquez must have acquired the new Danaë during his first sojourn in Italy (1629–31), since the group of works sold in 1634 included paintings of his own executed there, such as Joseph´s Bloody Coat (Patrimonio Nacional, Monasterio del Escorial) or the Forge of Vulcan (Museo del Prado, P1171).

Although Velázquez´s trip to Italy in 1629 took him to Venice, he may not have acquired the Danaë there. Only a single Danaë is documented in Venice before 1629, the quadro con Giove in pioggia d´oro di mano di Titiano mentioned in January 1606 in the posthumous inventory of the Flemish merchant Carlo Helman (who had died in Seville in 1605) and which Stefania Mason identifies with the quadro con Giove in pioggia d´oro, artist unnamed, included in the inventory of 13 May 1604 of Francesco Vrins, another Flemish merchant who resided in Venice. This Danaë must have left the Serenissima soon afterwards, for Ridolfi mentions no painting of the subject in Venice attributed to Titian. The possibility has been raised that it might be the painting inventoried in the possession of Giovanni Carlo Doria (1576-1625) in Genoa in 1621: Una piogia doro del Titiano.

Doria acquired his Danaë between 1617 and 1621, and it does not reappear in the family inventories after his death in 1625. Thus the Prado Danaë might have been owned by Doria and purchased by Velázquez when he arrived in Genoa in the autumn of 1629. The philo-Spanish sympathies of the Doria, and the letters of introduction that Velázquez carried with him, would no doubt have gained him access to the palaces of the Genoese aristocratcy. And that Velázquez acquired paintings in Genoa is implied by the fact that among the works in the 1634 sale was a Susanna and the Elders by the Genoese Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585). However, the Doria Danaë has alternatively been identified with that listed in 1633 in the collection of Louis Phélypeaux de la Vrillière (1598-1681) in Paris, and now in the Hermitage. The principal argument in favour of this hypothesis was that the Hermitage Danaë was the only version of the subject by Titian whose provenance was unrecorded before 1633; but now that we know that the provenance of the Prado Danaë is also uncertain, this association is open to reconsideration.

Whoever the first owner of the Prado Danaë might have been, we can draw two inferences from our study of the painting: one is that he must have been prepared to pay a very high price for the picture, given that the quality far outstrips that of the other known replicas such as those in Vienna and St Petersburg; secondly that he wanted a painting that was overtly erotic. The Prado Danaë greatly surpasses in sensuality the other autograph or studio versions in the voluptuousness of the figure, the absence of drapery, the ecstatic expression of Danaë´s face, her lips half-open to reveal her teeth, and the way that her left hand separates her thighs to ease the god´s access; even the presence of the dog could be seen as an allusion to lust in this context. Compared with the relatively mechanical execution of the versions at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hermitage, largely executed by Titian´s bottega for foreign dignitaries, the exceptional quality of the Prado Danaë suggests a specific commission from a wealthy patron whom the painter knew and liked. Titian must have painted this work around 1560-65. He executed it with short and broken brushstrokes, with a medium so diluted as to reveal the weave in the canvas, as can be seen in other paintings of these years such as his Self-Portrait (P407) and Tityus (P427), both also in the Museo del Prado.

The infrared reflectogram reveals differences of treatment between Danaë, whose sharp silhouette demonstrates the employment of a tracing, and the elderly wardress, who was drawn freehand: the same distinction, in fact, that we have already seen in the version at Apsley House. The X-radiograph also reveals minor alterations to both figures. In Danaë these concern the initial position of her right leg, which was more contracted, and in which there are small alterations to the extension of the toes of her right foot and the position of her bracelet. As for the wardress, changes can be seen to her chin, her dress -initially a little lower-, and her head-gear, revealing a figure practically identical to the wardress in the Hermitage canvas (Text drawn from Falomir, M.; Joannides, P.: "Dánae y Venus y Adonis, las primeras poesías de Tiziano para Felipe II", Boletín del Museo del Prado, 2014, pp. 7-51).

The Prado version is now agreed to be one painted around 1565, which only joined the Spanish royal collection in the 17th century, bought in Italy by Velasquez, and sold to Philip IV of Spain. It is of very high quality, and after the gift to Wellington took its place.[34] For Sheila Hale it is "the most sensuous of all Titian's female nudes ... [and] transmits a dark erotic charge that makes all previous reclining nudes ... look innocent by comparison."[35] It is now shown in the same room in the Prado as their Venus and Adonis and other Titians.[36]

The greenish cast of Venus's skin is set against the pale hues of the younger woman. Danaë parts her lips in pleasure, while the gold spills in greater quantity and with more velocity than in the Naples work. The painting is rendered in a looser manner than this; for example the folds of the bed linen and pillow are described with shorter more expressive brushstrokes.

Washington, DC—One of the most sensual paintings of the Italian Renaissance—Titian's Danaë (1544–1545) from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples—will be on view July 1 through November 2, 2014, in the West Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington, to celebrate the commencement of Italy's presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU).

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.

"The richness of the Gallery's collection of Venetian 16th-century painting includes the largest holdings in the United States of works by Titian and his studio, with 13 paintings, eight prints, and two drawings," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "We are most grateful for the generosity of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples and are pleased to present the Danae in such close proximity to other related works by Titian, celebrating the genius and legacy of one of the world's most influential painters."

"We are very pleased to continue our excellent cooperation with a prestigious institution such as the National Gallery in Washington on the occasion of the presentation of Titian's Danaë," said the Ambassador of Italy to the United States, Claudio Bisogniero. "We are particularly delighted that this exhibition will launch in the U.S. the Italian Presidency of the European Union, an important opportunity also to further strengthen the friendship between the two sides of the Atlantic."

"The Special Superintendency for Historic, Artistic and Ethno-anthropologic Properties of the City of Naples Museum Hub and the Palace of Caserta is particularly pleased to collaborate in this extraordinary event for promoting the excellence of Italian culture in the United States," said Fabrizio Vona, superintendent, Cultural Heritage for the City and the Museums of Naples and the Royal Palace of Caserta.

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