Portrait of a Gentleman

Around 1520 Titian was becoming the leading painter in Venice. Giovanni Bellini, who had dominated the city's art for a generation, had died in 1516, and the big commissions were passing to the younger man. The museum points out how many portraits of men Venice produced in these years, and how much Titian was sought after for them. This unnamed nobleman stands in a relaxed pose, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The museum reads him through the love poetry of the day, which favoured a melancholy ideal of manhood, so that the portrait shows a man aware of his rank and, at the same time, a man of feeling. The canvas, later mounted on an oak panel, came to Munich in 1806 from the Düsseldorf gallery.