After Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian

Portrait of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar (42 B.C. - A.D. 37)

Details

After Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian
Portrait of the Emperor Tiberius Caesar (42 B.C. - A.D. 37)
inscribed 'TIBERIO•C• / •III•' (upper left)
oil on canvas, unframed
51¼ x 38¼ in. (130.2 x 97.2 cm.)

Provenance

Abraham Darby IV (1804-1878), Stoke Court, Buckinghamshire, by 1857;
his sale; Christie's, London, 8 June 1867, lot 128, as 'Titian' (4 gns. to Carnegie).

Literature

W. Burger, Tre´sors d'art expose´s a' Manchester en 1857 et provenant des collections royales, des collections publiques et des collections particulie'res de Grand Bretagne, Paris, 1857, p. 77, as a copy.
J.A. Crowe; G.B. Cavalcaselle, Titian: His life and times, I, London, 1877, p. 423, as an old copy.
H.E. Wethey, The paintings of Titian, London, 1969-1975, III, p. 239.

Exhibited

Manchester, The Art Treasures of Great Britain, 5 May-17 October 1857, no. 265, as 'Titian'.

Lot Essay

The present lot took part in the famous Art Treasures Exhibition held in Manchester in 1857 as by Titian. The collection included 5,000 paintings and drawings by "Modern Masters" such as Hogarth, Gainsborough, Turner, Constable, and the Pre-Raphaelites, and 1,000 works by European Old Masters, including Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt as well as the Madonna and Child with Saint John and the Angels, which had only recently been attributed to Michelangelo and is still sometimes referred to as as the Manchester Madonna. The original composition by Titian was destroyed in the great fire of 1734 in the Galeria del Meliodia, Alcazar, Madrid.

More from Christie's Interiors - Masters and Makers

View All