Retrato de Alfonso I de Este

The painting Titian made of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, around 1523 no longer exists. We know it only through copies, including one Rubens made and one now in New York. In it the duke rested one hand on the muzzle of a cannon and the other on his sword, a pointed image for a ruler then locked in a dangerous quarrel with the Pope over his lands. Alfonso was in fact famous for his artillery, which he had cast himself. The portrait so impressed the Emperor Charles V that he asked for it as a gift, and Titian had to work up a replacement. Vasari saw the original, and Michelangelo admired it on a visit to Ferrara in 1529, which is part of how we know what has since been lost.