The Tribute Money

Around 1516, as a young man, Titian had painted this Gospel exchange for the Duke of Ferrara, a small, polished panel now in Dresden. Some 50 years later he came back to it on a larger canvas and with a much freer hand. A Pharisee holds out a gold coin and asks whether it is right to pay tax to Rome. Christ answers with the line about giving Caesar what is Caesar's and God what is God's, one hand raised, the other pointing down. Behind the questioner an older man peers through spectacles. The picture was probably finished by October 1568 and sent to Philip II of Spain, and it stayed in the sacristy of the Escorial, the king's monastery-palace, for about 200 years. The colours have shifted since. Christ's blue cloak and the Pharisee's purple scarf have both changed as their pigments aged. The Gallery bought it in 1852.