Autorretrato

Titian painted himself here in his 70s, and he did something odd for a portrait of a living man. He turned fully to profile. In Venice at that time the strict profile was kept for the dead or for rulers on medals, and Titian himself had used it only for men no longer alive. To paint his own face this way he would have needed several mirrors set at angles. He shows no vanity about his age. The skin sags, the beard is white, the eyes fix on something past the frame. Around his neck hangs the heavy gold chain of the Order of the Golden Spur, which the emperor Charles V had given him back in 1533. Vasari saw a self-portrait in Titian's studio in 1566 that matches this one closely.