Beschrijving
An old man on the left in profile reaching out towards a younger woman to the right. This impressive work on paper is said o be based on a lost self-portrait by Titian. Rather than a mistress, the young woman might be seen as a personification of Pictura, or Painting. She is clearly oversized in respect to the painter. Titian had used an extra-large woman in a series of paintings of a nude Venus, in each of which the woman is larger than the male musician. This discrepancy in scale might mean that the man is an “artist” creating his “work of art”. Music, as a metaphor for the creation of art, has been a common theme in painting in every century since the Renaissance. Instead of music here Titian (or possibly Van Dyck) constructed a composition in which touch becomes the metaphor for “painting.” A skull is positioned within a niche under the elbow of the woman. The lower part of the print has been cut out. The text would read: ‘Ecco il belveder ó che felice sorte! / Che la fruttifera frutto in ventre porte // Ma ch’ella, ó me vita et morte piano / demone tra l’arte del magno Titiano // Al molto illustre, magnifico et osseruandis.mo sig.re il SIG LUCA VAN UFFEL, in segno d’affectione et inclinatione / amorevole como Patrone et singularis.mo amico suo dedicato il vero ritratto del unico Titiano Ant. van Dyck.’ The dedicatee of the print is Lucas van Uffelen (1586-1638) art dealer and patron of van Dyck.
