Christ the Redeemer

In 1533 Titian was in Bologna painting the most powerful man in Europe. The emperor Charles V was so taken with him that in May he made the painter a Knight of the Golden Spur and a Count Palatine, titles no artist had been handed before. In the middle of all that court business, Titian went on turning out small, private images of Christ like this one, a half-length Redeemer made for personal prayer, kept close in a bedroom or a study. The same hand that flattered an emperor worked here at a quieter register. It hangs now in the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace in Florence, among the paintings the Medici gathered.