DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0249
TITIAN.
245
his art at the service of princes and their favourite
beauties, but it was ever ready to immortalize the
features of those who were the objects of his own
affection and admiration. Unfortunately it was
not his custom to inscribe on the canvas the names
of those who sat to him : many of the most glorious
heads he ever painted remain to this hour unknown.
Amid all their reality (and nothing in painting
ever so conveyed the idea of a presence) they have
a particular dignity which strikes us with respect;
we would fain interrogate them, but they look at
us life-like, grandly, calmly, like beings of another
world; they seem to recognise us, and we can
never recognise them : only we feel the certainty
that just as they now look, so they lived and looked
in long past times. Such a portrait is that in the
Hampton Court gallery ; that grave dark man,—
in figure and attitude so tranquil, so contemplative
—but in his eyes and on his lips a revelation of
feeling and eloquence. And such a picture is that
of the lady in the Sciarra Palace at Rome, called
expressively “ Titian’s Bella Donna.” It has no
other name, but no one ever looked at it without
the wish to carry it away ; and no anonymous por-
trait has ever been so multiplied by copies. But
leaving these, we will subjoin here a short list of
those great and celebrated personages who are
known to have sat to Titian, and whose portraits
remain to us, a precious legacy, and forming the
vol. n. M
245
his art at the service of princes and their favourite
beauties, but it was ever ready to immortalize the
features of those who were the objects of his own
affection and admiration. Unfortunately it was
not his custom to inscribe on the canvas the names
of those who sat to him : many of the most glorious
heads he ever painted remain to this hour unknown.
Amid all their reality (and nothing in painting
ever so conveyed the idea of a presence) they have
a particular dignity which strikes us with respect;
we would fain interrogate them, but they look at
us life-like, grandly, calmly, like beings of another
world; they seem to recognise us, and we can
never recognise them : only we feel the certainty
that just as they now look, so they lived and looked
in long past times. Such a portrait is that in the
Hampton Court gallery ; that grave dark man,—
in figure and attitude so tranquil, so contemplative
—but in his eyes and on his lips a revelation of
feeling and eloquence. And such a picture is that
of the lady in the Sciarra Palace at Rome, called
expressively “ Titian’s Bella Donna.” It has no
other name, but no one ever looked at it without
the wish to carry it away ; and no anonymous por-
trait has ever been so multiplied by copies. But
leaving these, we will subjoin here a short list of
those great and celebrated personages who are
known to have sat to Titian, and whose portraits
remain to us, a precious legacy, and forming the
vol. n. M