Портрет Лавинии Вечеллио

In 1545 Titian, already the most sought-after painter in Europe, made his one long visit to Rome, working for the Farnese, the family of the reigning pope. This portrait of a young woman in rich Venetian dress comes from those years, and tradition holds she is Lavinia, the painter's own daughter, though the identification has never been secure. It stayed in Farnese hands for generations and passed with their collection down to Naples. In the Second World War German troops removed it from a store of art at the abbey of Montecassino; it surfaced afterward in a salt mine at Altaussee in Austria and was returned to Italy.