Portrait of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo

In the early 1540s the Spanish crown ruled southern Italy through a viceroy in Naples, and since 1532 that post had been held by Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, who cut a new main street through the city that still carries his name, Via Toledo. The man in this portrait may be him. Titian paints him at knee length, a format kept for sitters of real standing, and surrounds him with signs of rank and office: fur, a heavy gold chain, a sword, a commander's baton and, on his chest, the red cross of the Spanish Order of Santiago. The museum is careful about the name. An age is written on the canvas, and it does not fit the date that research favours for the painting, so the identification is still disputed. The museum also catalogues the picture as Titian and workshop, meaning his assistants had a share in painting it. It comes from the collection of the Bavarian royal house.