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Male Portrait

Tiziano Veccelio (Titian)

Basic information

ID: Ж-756
Author: Tiziano Veccelio (Titian)
Name: Male Portrait
Date of creation: 16th c.
Country: Italy
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 94.4 x 79.8

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: portraiture
Plot: Portrait
Provenance: the Lubomirski collection
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Tiziano Veccelio (Titian)
Artist's lifetime: c.1480/1485–1576
Country: Italy
Biography: Tiziano Veccelio (Titian) (c.1480/1485–1576) was an Italian painter, the most excellent representative of the Venetian school of the High and Late Renaissance. Throughout his artistic career, Titian referred to the genre of portraiture, often painting his customers without a live model. At first, he listened to the customers' wishes and strictly adhered to the time limits defined by the clients. When his fame spread throughout Italy, and the most influential families argued among themselves for the right to have at least one portrait of his authorship, he began to choose orders, determine deadlines, and set prices independently. Researchers of Titian's oeuvre unequivocally claim that nothing was impossible for the artist in painting because he spoke the language of colour. The master disliked improvising, preferring to stick to the artistic style he had developed over the years. While working on a painting, the artist usually began by applying a thick layer of primer to the canvas on which he painted the first sketches and then suspended the work for a month. When resuming the process, he improved the forms and colours. All subsequent layers of paint were applied thinly, with pigments and black oil (used mainly in the late period of his creative work) mixed together. He typically worked with a large and broad brush. Titian made the final brushstrokes with his finger, mixing colours and erasing the light and halftones boundaries. Titian's greatest gift is colouring. The works of his early and mature periods of creative work impress the viewers with the richness and brightness of their colours, while the paintings of his late period appeal to the audience with the combinations of only three hues, namely white, black, and red ones. The conscious limitation of the colour palette is most expressive in the portraits of his late creative period. To achieve transparency and a matte finish simultaneously, Titian rubbed the pigments with the so-called black oil, a mixture of linseed or nut oil with tin. He heated the given mixture over a slow fire at 230° C for about two hours until it acquired a brown colour and a thick consistency.

Object description

In the early 1940s, a collection of the Lviv Art Gallery (now Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery) was enriched with the "Male Portrait" painting. As is known, the given work belonged to Lubomirski Princes Museum, Lviv's largest public museum that opened in 1823. According to the museum inventory records, the work was listed as "Male Portrait" by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1480/1485–1576), the leader of the Venetian school of painting and one of the most prominent artists of the High Renaissance. The records also indicate that the painting was restored and repainted over the entire surface, while the canvas was duplicated and stretched on a new subframe. On July 7, 1910, the work was sent to Vienna, but the purpose of that is still unknown. According to the Gallery's Accession Register, in August 1956, the portrait was restored by experts from the State Central Art Restoration Workshop. An X-ray examination of the work performed at the end of July 2022 helped reveal the author's signature – Titianus – on the right side of the man's face depicted in the painting. "Male Portrait" from the Gallery's collection was probably created by Titian in the late period of his artistic career, as evidenced by the texture of the paint layer and the limited range of colours. Depicted in a three-quarter turn to the left, an unknown man is shown on a dark background. His inner world is expressed through intense deep colour, textured brushstrokes, and diffused soft light rather than a majestic posture or restrained gestures. Such a technique enlivens the thoughtful face of the portrayed person. It emphasises his penetrating look filled with life wisdom and experience and goes beyond the canvas as if into the future. The man's clothing is painted in detail. The main focus of the work is kept on the tip of the belt – the man is tightening it with his right hand. This portrait is an excellent example of the masterful conveying of the hero's inner world and a historical document of the era.

Portrayed person

The name of the person portrayed: Antonio Grimani
Lifetime of the person portrayed: 1435–1523

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Male Portrait

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