Loading...
Surrounded by angels holding the symbols of the Passion, God the Father, the dead Christ and the Holy Spirit are shown in a cloud of glory over a landscape. This device, which derives from prints by Dürer, would also be used by Titian for The Glory in the Museo del Prado. The figures reveal the influence of Raphael. Vermeyen was highly appreciated at the court of Charles V and undertook impor
Charles V commissioned The Glory from Titian during their meeting in Augsburg in 1550-51. The painting was completed in October 1554 and was sent to Brussels. The unusual composition, which must correspond to precise instructions on the part of the emperor, as Gronau noted, is presided over by the Trinity, with the Virgin and behind her Saint John the Baptist -theologically the two principal inter
Religion succoured by Spain (c.1572-75), belongs to the last group of paintings that Titian sent to Philip II in 1576, one year before the artist’s death. As such, it is almost seven decades older than the earliest work by Titian, The Virgin and Child between Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Roch (P288), c.1510. Contemplating the two together allows viewers to recognise and admire Titian’s excepti
This painting commemorates events that took place in 1571: the defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto on October 7, and the birth of the infante Fernando, heir to the throne, on December 5th. The proximity of these two events led them to be viewed repeatedly as gifts from Heaven in circles close to the monarch. Thus, a letter from Luis de Requesens, Governer of Milan to Sancho de Padilla, dated D
Philip III (1578-1621) was the son of Philip II and his fourth wife, Anne of Austria. Tiel portrays Philip while he was heir to the throne. He is depicted standing, full-length, and wearing an elaborate suit of Milanese armour and a helmet. Like Hercules at the Crossroads, he must choose between Virtue and Vice, helped by Chronos who pushes Cupid away while bringing the figure of Virtue closer to
Velázquez never saw Philip III, who died in 1621 before the artist arrived at court in Madrid. When he was required to include the monarch in The Expulsion of the Moriscos, a now lost work, he made this preliminary study. Velázquez based himself on portraits painted during Philip’s lifetime, which he transformed by adapting them to his own style and to the King’s near profile pose in
In this life-size bust the Emperor Charles V is shown wearing the emblem of the Golden Fleece. His suit of armour, of the “fleur-de-lys volutes” type, was made around 1521 by the Augsburg armourer Kolman Helmschmid. Charles was seen wearing it in Titian’s portrait of around 1531, a composition that Montorsoli may have known.
Felipe II (1527-1598) is represented as a young man, with military armor and the necklace of the Golden Fleece on his chest. The armor's epaulettes end in lion's heads, and its breastplate has a Victory flanked by mermaids. This decoration, along with the sitter's bare head, which leans forward, give the work a powerful sense of majesty that links it to certain works of Antiquity. Clearly document
