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A Tale of Two Portraits: Titian's SeatedPortraits of Philip IIStephanie R. MillerPublished online: 14 Mar 2012.

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A Tale of Two Portraits: Titian’s Seated Portraitsof Philip II

Stephanie R. Miller

This paper explores the relationship between two seated portraits of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598),one an oil sketch and one apparently the finished portrait derived from the sketch. Thus far, the twoportraits have been attributed to Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1488–1576). However, an analysis ofeach painting’s style, chronology, and provenance challenges the nature of the paintings’relationship to one another and defies the attribution of the finished portrait to Titian. Franzvon Lenbach (1836–1904), one of the leading portraitists in nineteenth-century Germany and asuperior copyist of Old Master paintings, particularly those by Titian, instead emerges as thepivotal figure uniting the paintings and is here proposed as the author of the finished portrait.

Keywords: Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1488–1576); Philip II of Spain (1527–1598);Portraiture; Franz von Lenbach (1836–1904); Copies; Restoration; Repainting

From descriptions of Titian’s (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1488–1576) studio by GiorgioVasari (1511–1574) and Carlo Ridolfi (1594–1658), we know of Titian’s practice ofkeeping studies and recording finished paintings given to his patrons.1 Titian’s oilsketch, Philip II, at the Cincinnati Art Museum (Figure 1), which was in the artist’sstudio at his death, appears to have been either a modello [record of the finishedportrait] or a study for the finished portrait presumably delivered to Philip II ofSpain (1527–1598).2 The location of the finished portrait is currently unknown; itslast recorded location was in the collection of Dr. Torsten Kreuger (1884–1973),Geneva, Switzerland (Figure 2).3 However, a study of the facts associated with thesetwo paintings reveals that this was perhaps not the connection between these works.An analysis of the history, provenance, and style of the Cincinnati sketch raises ques-tions about the nature of its relationship to Titian’s so-called finished portrait of PhilipII. After reevaluating the histories of the two paintings, the most significant questionbrought to light is the authenticity of the “finished” portrait last known to be in theKreuger collection. Through this process, I ultimately reattribute the painting toFranz von Lenbach (1836–1904), a nineteenth-century German artist and collectorwho possessed an intimate knowledge of Titian’s paintings.

Philip II and Titian

With the abdication of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) in 1556, his sonPhilip became the Habsburg king of Spain and its territories. Although Philip was not a

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cosmopolitan warrior or ruler like his father, Philip still admired and attempted toemulate his father’s mission, authority, and taste for art.4 Just prior to the Diet ofAugsburg in 1550, Philip began to eclipse his father as a leading patron of one of themost influential artists of the sixteenth century. Philip II was Titian’s most activepatron during the last twenty-five years of the artist’s life. Although they only mettwice, once in 1548 and again in 1550, by the time of Titian’s death in 1576, Philipreceived at least twenty-five paintings, many without any documentation regardingthe origins of their commissions.5 Most of the known portraits of Philip by Titianseem to date between the years 1549 to 1556.

Of the extant portraits of Philip, only a few are securely attributed to Titian or hisworkshop. The dates of Titian’s Philip portraits are questionable, including his mostsuccessful full-length portrait, Philip II in Armor (Prado, Madrid), and the twoseated portraits of Philip: the sketch in Cincinnati and the presumed finishedversion. Dating the portraits is important in determining the purpose of the sketch.The sketch’s history and provenance are here considered to question the date, aswell as the authorship, of the finished version.

On a return trip from Augsburg, Philip met Titian for the first time in Milanbetween December 20, 1548 and January 7, 1549. While documents mention thatpayment should be made for “certain portraits” begun during this meeting, there isno description or indication of a specific portrait. Although Charles Hope believesthe Philip II in Armor was painted at the time of this first visit,6 most scholars statethat it was painted between 1550 and 1551 at Augsburg.7 At the request of the

Figure 2 Titian (?) or Franz von Lenbach (?), PhilipII, ca. 1550–1556 or ca. 1880s. Oil on canvas, 96 × 75cm. Unknown private collection. Illustration in OskarFischel, Tizian: Des meisters Gemalde in 230 Abbildun-gen (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1904), p. 110.

Figure 1 Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Philip II, ca. 1550–1556. Oil on canvas, 108 × 94 cm. Cincinnati ArtMuseum. Image courtesy of the Cincinnati Art Museum,Cincinnati, Ohio.

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emperor, Titian went to Augsburg, where he visited the prince for the second and lasttime between November 4, 1550 and May 1551.8 According to nineteenth-centuryscholars Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, the purpose ofTitian’s trip was to paint portraits of Philip for propaganda purposes—to popularizePhilip.9 In fact, they asserted that the Cincinnati sketch provided the facial prototypefor the Prado armored portrait and other full-length portraits, which were alteredsimply by changing costume and/or pose. This propaganda effort was necessary, asCrowe and Cavalcaselle astutely suggest, for it was in Augsburg in 1550 that agreementswere made for Charles’s retirement and Philip’s succession to the throne.

Philip’s full-length portraits in court attire and in armor illustrate his desire toemulate his father via the visual tradition that Charles V and Titian established forthe Habsburg family, and they demonstrate Titian’s interest in maintaining thisvisual continuity between father and son, emperor and king.

Such continuity is conveyed through the seated portraits of Philip, both the sketchand the finished painting, and the seated portrait of Charles V (1548, Alte Pinakothek,Munich). While Charles is a seated, full-length figure and Philip is not, the latter wasclearly derived from the former, and both are portrayed in a traditional ruler pose.Unlike the Charles portrait, Titian either found it necessary for Philip to hold ascepter and be clad in royal regalia, or this costume was specified in its commission.Although the scepter and crown are now present in the Cincinnati oil sketch, theversion from the Kreuger collection shows Philip without the crown, thus puttinginto question how closely, and especially when, the “finished” version relied on thesketch or the painting of Charles.

Provenance

Mistakes over which provenance belongs to which painting have led to confusion in thepast, yet the oil sketch actually has very secure provenance and documentation.Although the provenance of the Cincinnati Art Museum portrait was sometimes mis-takenly connected with the finished portrait, Ridolfi stated in 1648 that the sketch wasin Titian’s studio at his death in 1576,10 and was later sold by Titian’s son Pomponio(b. 1524) to Cristoforo Barbarigo (1544–1614) of Padua on October 27, 1581.11 Theoil sketch remained in the Barbarigo family until 1880 when Franz von Lenbach, aGerman collector and artist bought the painting. Lenbach’s widow sold the paintingin 1911 to art dealers Agnew and Sons in London.12 Sir Hugh Lane purchased itfrom the Agnew firm in 1913, and then sold it to Mary Emery that same year. In1927, the sketch was bequeathed to the Cincinnati Art Museum by Emery.

According to a 1913 letter from Sir Hugh Lane’s agent to the director of theCincinnati Art Museum, the only reason Franz von Lenbach ever owned this Titianwas due to a misunderstanding between Dr. Wilhelm Bode (1845–1929), the Germanart scholar and museum official with great latitude in art procurement, and Franz vonLenbach. With the opportunity, but apparently not all the funds to purchase Titian’sPhilip II oil sketch, his Francis I, and a painting by Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli daCastelfranco; ca. 1477/1478–1510), Bode requested a loan from Lenbach. Lenbachproceeded with the loan, so long as he could have the Titians for one year to study

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them. According to Bode, after a year, when he had the money to repay the loan, Bodeclaimed that Lenbach refused to return the Titians, and that Lenbach said he boughtthem for himself. When Bode said, “But you promised,” Lenbach apparently replied,“You did not really believe that, did you?”13

The documentation and provenance for the finished portrait is far less extensive.Francesco Valcanover assigned its earliest location as being at one time in theLenbach collection in Munich, and then sometime before 1892, in the EdwardHabich collection in Kassel, Germany.14 In May of 1892, the painting was put upfor auction with no provenance.15 Art historian Harold Wethey only vaguely recountedthe painting’s earliest history in the Habich collection until 1892. After a gap of forty-four years, it went to Georges Combez in 1936, who sold it to Hermann Rasch in Stock-holm, Sweden that same year,16 and the painting was acquired by Dr. Torsten Kreugerin Geneva, Switzerland sometime before 1970.17 Its present location remains uncertain.Recent literature simply refers to its location as formerly in the Dr. Torsten Kreugercollection, Geneva. Traditionally, scholars accepted its attribution to Titian18; onlyJohn Spike hinted at the possibility that the final version may not be by Titian. In a1993 catalog for the Cincinnati Art Museum, Spike wrote, “most scholars describethe finished version as a Titian,” yet the caption to the image reads “Titian (?).”19

The two portraits depict a roughly three-quarter length Philip, seated in a wooden-framed chair, which is turned obliquely to the picture plane while Philip looks directlyout at the viewer.20 A loosely hung gold damask cloth hangs behind the figure in eachpainting, pulled to the right to reveal a window and a distant landscape. In each, Philipholds a scepter, is clad in royal attire of silks and furs, and is adorned with a heavy goldchain, certainly the Order of the Golden Fleece to which Philip belonged. The paintingsshare a common color palette including mostly gold, black, white, and flesh tones.Despite abundant similarities, there are significant differences, perhaps most notablyin the manner of head covering: in the Cincinnati painting, Philip wears a crown,while in the Kreuger painting he wears a black beret. Also dissimilar is the relationshipbetween sitter and picture plane. In the Kreuger version, Philip is closer to and occupiesmore of the picture plane. In the Cincinnati sketch, by contrast, Philip is a bit moreremoved from it and therefore fills less of the painted surface. Interestingly, thescepter held by the Cincinnati Philip is pushed forward a bit to create a more open,receptive figure, whereas the Kreuger Philip holds the scepter closer to his body. Theopenness of the Cincinnati work also extends to the longer window on the left sideof the work and, correspondingly, the smaller window, and landscape, further intensi-fies the compressed composition of the Kreuger painting. Above all else, the greatestdifference between the two paintings is how the paint has been handled. The brush-work in the Cincinnati sketch is loose and feathery creating indistinct, less solidforms. In the Kreuger work, on the other hand, the brushwork is controlled andfirm, providing clear forms with distinct, even linear contours.

The execution of the Cincinnati sketch conveys the freedom and the immediacy of awork done from life, which suggests the two times Titian and Philip met—in Milan in1548–1549, and again in Augsburg between 1550 and 1551. However, the presence ofthe crown and scepter in this sketch has led many to believe a date between 1554 and1556 is more appropriate. The earlier date of 1554 is when Philip became king of

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England upon his short-lived marriage to Mary Tudor, and also when he became king ofNaples, as a wedding gift from his father. The latter date of 1556 is when Philip officiallybecame king of Spain and all of its territories after his father’s abdication. Since Philipappears older in this sketch than he does in the full-length Prado portrait, the Cincinnatiwork might postdate the Prado portrait of 1551. However, the appearance of a moremature Philip might owe itself to Titian reworking and refining the painting later inhis studio. In essence, scholars have had difficulty reconciling the immediacy of an oilstudy apparently done from life with the other elements suggesting a date later than 1551.

The history of the sketch’s alterations, transformations, and restorations revealsmuch, but may not completely put to rest the concerns of dating and purpose. Priorto 1877, when Crowe and Cavalcaselle viewed the Cincinnati oil sketch in the Barbarigocollection in Padua, the painting looked quite different than it does today. In theirdescription, Crowe and Cavalcaselle discussed Philip’s costume and pose, and theway in which “part of his head shows its short chestnut hair cropping out from ablack beret cap sown with pearls”; they also mentioned that Philip holds a baton orscepter and that an inscription along the bottom reads: PHILIPVS HISPAN. REX[Philip King of Spain] (Figure 3).21 Wethey argued that since they refer to a beretrather than a crown and discuss the impressionistic nature of the painting, Croweand Cavalcaselle must have confused the two versions, resulting in this conflation.22

However, Crowe and Cavalcaselle never mentioned a second painting and in his accu-sation, Wethey neglected their reference to an inscription, which today is not part ofeither portrait. Erwin Panofsky insightfully suggested that perhaps in the Cincinnatiwork Philip at one time wore a beret that was changed to a crown after 1877.23

The Cincinnati Oil Sketch in Franz von Lenbach’s Collection

Panofsky’s suggestion is closer to the truth than Wethey’s hypothesis. The sketches andnotes made by Cavalcaselle of the Cincinnati painting when in the Barbarigo collection,record an inscription along the bottom and beads on the cap, which significantly arenot arranged identically to those in the finished Kreuger painting— two beads ontop, more hair exposed on his forehead, and also the swag of drapery aligns moreclosely with the sketch than to the finished painting—all of which suggest that thedrawing did not rely on the finished painting. X-ray photography reveals traces ofthe inscription on the Cincinnati oil sketch that reads: PHILIPPVS [sic] HISPANREX; the letters were in yellow on a gray plinth and were painted sometime in theeighteenth century or earlier.24 This information refutes Wethey’s explanation thatCrowe and Cavalcaselle confused the two paintings and confirms that they studiedonly the Cincinnati-Barbarigo sketch.

In 1911, Lenbach’s widow reported that Lenbach himself removed the beret on theoil sketch sometime between 1880 and 1884, revealing the crown we now see.25 Aphotograph from Lenbach’s home documents the work there, after he had removedthe beret, together with Titian’s Francis I (Figure 4).26 It is not known when theberet was painted over the crown. Perhaps a later artist, maybe Titian’s son, addedthe beret before it went into the Barbarigo collection, so that the portrait wouldshare additional affinities with Titian’s seated portrait of Charles V. Remaining

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surface traces of the beret’s paint were analyzed and its primarily azurite componentelucidates only that the beret was probably added before the 1750s. It is also notcertain when the crown was added.27 While the crown may have been original tothe sketch, its finished appearance makes this unlikely. Most scholars believe it is alater addition, and technical exams, unable to date it precisely, merely inform usthat the crown is of “considerable age.”28

The crown is rarely accepted as being by Titian’s hand, yet may have been added byone of his assistants.29 The crown continues to present questions of dating, purpose,and authorship, but the original inclusion of a king’s scepter in the Cincinnatisketch is certain. X-ray photographs corroborate its presence by clarifying the lowerportion of the scepter, which is now only faintly visible in the work (Figure 5).

The scepter and crown may propose a date of at least 1554 or 1556 for the work,despite the fact that many agree that this sketch of Philip was done from life, whichpushes the date back to 1550–1551 at the latest. Wethey dated the sketch to 1551,arguing it was altered in 1554 or 1556, when the crown would have been appropriate.30

Although certainly possible, his reasons overlook the purpose of the scepter, which wasalways a part of the sketch. At the Diet of Augsburg in 1550, arrangements werefinalized that upon Charles’s abdication Philip would succeed as king of Spain. In1550, the date of the abdication was still uncertain.31 Thus, it would have beenfitting to include the scepter, or even the crown, in this sketch, perhaps not to com-memorate the decision of 1550, but at least to anticipate and prepare for a definite,future event. Perhaps the crown was added after Philip’s coronation.

After Lenbach removed the inscription and beret, probably in the 1880s, othercleanings and restorations took place. The background textile was enhanced andportions of the face were strengthened, primarily the nostrils and the mouth.32

Figure 3 Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, Sketch of Philip II when it was in the Barbarigo Collection, Padua, 1877.Pencil drawing. Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. It. IV, 2031 (=12 272), VI, folder E. f. 76 r and f. 76 isv.

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The landscape through the window has suffered the most through over-painting andsubsequent cleanings. Yet from original traces, it appears there was never a fullydeveloped view, only sketchy indications of a sky and landscape.33

Some scholars believe that this is not a sketch, but an unfinished work.34 If thiswere true, why did Titian not complete it, instead of starting another one, theversion from the Kreuger collection? Most scholars, however, concur that this wassurely a sketch or study for later versions; for example, Crowe and Cavalcaselle believedit was the facial prototype for the Philip II in Armor. However, neither Crowe andCavalcaselle nor any literature prior to 189235 mentions the Cincinnati-Barbarigopainting as a modello of the finished painting or even as a sketch for it. In fact,Crowe and Cavacalselle make no mention of a finished seated portrait of Philip II.While the Cincinnati work likely served as a sketch for the painting, at question iswhen was it painted and who relied on the prototype? If a technical examinationcould be conducted on the finished portrait, the results would certainly be revealingand would potentially settle questions of dating and chronology. If the finished paintinghad been based directly on the Cincinnati sketch, the issue of when the beret was added

Figure 4 Anton Hess, Photograph of interior of Franz von Lenbach’s villa in Munich with Titian’s Philip II, 1882.Munich, Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. Illustration in Adolf Rosenberg, Lenbach (Bielefeld: Velhagen &Klasing, 1899), pl. 59.

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to the sketch becomes more significant to the date and authenticity of the finishedpainting.

The Finished Portrait and Franz von Lenbach

Crowe and Cavalcaselle recorded the Cincinnati portrait before Lenbach cleaned it andremoved the beaded beret. One can see a similarity between the cap in Cavalcaselle’sdrawing and the finished portrait in terms of the cluster of gems by Philip’s left ear.We know that the beret once on the Cincinnati sketch, although old, was probablynot by Titian’s hand. The beret, then, would have been added to the sketch afterTitian’s death. If we assume the sketch—as we see it now, without the beret andwithout the cluster of gems near the ear, as documented in Crowe and Cavalcaselle’snotes and the finished portrait—is how it was left during Titian’s lifetime, it wouldappear that the finished version would necessarily have been painted after Titian’sdeath. The artist of the finished portrait relied on the sketch or study by Titian afterit was altered, probably by a later artist. If these suggestions can be accepted, it isdoubtful that Titian participated at all in the finished painting. Furthermore, there is

Figure 5 Detail of x-ray photograph of Titian’s Philip II in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Image courtesy of theCincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio.

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no record or mention of the finished portrait prior to the late nineteenth century.Perhaps not coincidentally, the finished version’s earliest recorded provenance ispossibly in Lenbach’s collection. Soon after Lenbach purchased the oil sketch, heremoved the beret and the inscription from it. Is it possible that before he begancleaning and re-painting the Cincinnati-Barbarigo sketch, that he recorded, or finishedthe sketch in a brand-new painting—the finished portrait?

Lenbach was a portraitist in his own right, who copied several of Titian’s works suchas his Sacred and Profane Love (1864, Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen—Samm-lung Schack, Munich), the Venus of Urbino (Figure 6; 1866, Bayerische Staatsgemalde-sammlungen—Sammlung Schack, Munich), and Charles V after the Battle of Muhlberg(1868, Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen—Sammlung Schack, Munich); Lenbachcopied these paintings on his trips to Italy and to Spain in the 1860s and 1870s. Hewas a successful artist whose talents won him awards to study in Rome and enough pres-tige for patrons to send him to Florence, Spain, Morocco, Vienna, and Egypt to paint. Bythe time he returned to Munich in 1878, he was among the most acclaimed portraitists inGermany, painting the likenesses of Otto Furst von Bismark (1815–1898), EmperorWilhelm I (1797–1888), and Pope Leo XIII (Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele LuigiPecci, 1810–1903). His status was further elevated when he was raised to nobility in1882. Despite his success in painting the likenesses of his contemporaries, his stylewas at times criticized for its emulation of Old Masters such as Titian, Peter PaulRubens (1577–1640), and Diego Velasquez (1599–1660).36 In 1886 he began designinghis Munich residence in the fashion of a Florentine villa, which housed his immensecollections and later became the Stadtische Galerie Lenbachhaus.

Lenbach received his training as a copyist in the 1860s, when he was in the employof Adolph Friedrich Graf von Schack (1815–1894), also of Munich. With the desire toown Old Masters, but not the money, Schack engaged artists to copy the best of the OldMasters and hired Lenbach in 1863 to go to Rome for this specific purpose. Pleased

Figure 6 Franz von Lenbach, Venus of Urbino, 1866. Copy after Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) original of 1538. Oil oncanvas, 119.8 × 169.9 cm. Inv. 11428. Munich, Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen—Sammlung Schack. Imagecourtesy of Fotoarchiv und Reproduktionsrechte Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Munich.

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with Lenbach’s work, Schack sent him to Florence and Madrid, where Lenbach copiedTitian’s Charles V after the Battle of Muhlberg and his Danae (1863-1865, StadtischeGalerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich), both intended for Schack’s gallery in Munich.Lenbach also copied several excellent Old Master paintings for his own privategallery.37 He copied perhaps as many as fifty paintings by Titian, and possibly moregiven his career-long preoccupation with the work of Titian.38 Lenbach’s fascinationwith the Venetian master is also revealed in letters that describe his desire to capturethe technical essence of Titian’s painting. In one letter to his future wife, Lolo,Lenbach wrote that he “experimented much again and found the secret of Titian.”39

In another citation regarding his copies after Titian, Lenbach wrote “that it is impos-sible to know him [Titian], to know exactly the delicate complicated technique ofTitian, not to mention how to portray it.”40

Lenbach’s copies after Titian are impressive, though they do lack the “delicate”qualities of the master. Lenbach’s versions of Titian’s paintings, such as Danae, havea uniformly even, finished surface. The canvases he used appear to have a tight,regular weave. I would expect to find these same qualities in the finished portrait ofPhilip II.41 From reproductions of this painting, the surface appears to be veryevenly finished, a quality inconsistent with Titian’s works from the 1550s.

Even if Valcanover and Fischel confused the provenance of the two paintings,there is still no mention of the Kreuger painting prior to 1892. However, if the finishedpainting’s earliest known location is the Lenbach collection as Fischel and Valcanoverclaim, then the relationship between the sketch and the finished painting has not onlythe subject as its common link, but also Franz von Lenbach. With a lifetime devoted tothe study of Titian’s technique by means of copying, it is reasonable to propose thatLenbach would have copied the Philip II oil sketch when it was in his own collection,and that one might expect to find such a copy by Lenbach.42 Having a painting byTitian in his own studio surely presented an exciting opportunity for an artist suchas Lenbach who desired to discover Titian’s secrets. Not only would he be copyingTitian, but he would get to finish what the Venetian master started, in essence applyingwhat he had learned through years of copying. Lenbach not only “restored” the sketchthat he owned, but he likely also created a finished version in a manner that he felt wasconsistent with Titian’s work. With regard to this, the painting is more of a sincerere-creation by Lenbach of what a finished portrait by Titian would have looked like,rather than a faithful or direct copy of the Venetian master’s work. It is importantto stress that there is nothing to suggest that Lenbach’s finished version is anythingmore than an “honest imitation,” which after Lenbach’s death re-emerged and wasaccepted at face value as a Titian.43

When considering the finished painted version of Philip II, now known to scholarsonly through photographs, it seems to lack Titian’s style. The subtle nuances of thefacial features, the choice of unity versus detail, the fundamental hallmarks ofTitian’s portraits, are not present. The linear and rigid qualities of the finished portraitare qualities not commonly associated with Titian. The evocative landscape, found inmany of Titian’s works, here is rather un-Venetian, reflecting instead a nineteenth-century taste for orientalizing landscapes. Although its current location is not publiclyknown, and despite a lack of access to the work, the Kreuger painting nevertheless

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appears to have a stronger link to Franz von Lenbach than to Titian. Essentially, theonly reason for attributing the finished painting to Titian is that it derives fromTitian’s sketch, implying to the hopeful that a finished version exists. Furthermore,this mistaken connection between the two paintings might suggest that the Cincinnatisketch is a modello [record of the finished painting], when in fact this associationcannot be verified.

However, until the painting’s location is revealed and until there is the opportunityto study the finished painting, this can only remain a tantalizing suggestion. Nonethe-less, in light of these issues, technical examinations are essential before the finishedpainting can be securely attributed to Titian or reattributed, as I posit, to Franz vonLenbach. Whether the problem of possible misattribution is due to an unscrupulousowner or to an honest mistake, the attribution has essentially remained unchallengedsince Wethey’s monograph on Titian was published more than forty years ago.Although Lenbach himself probably had no intention to deceive, his painting neverthe-less has deceived a perhaps willing audience. It would be much more exciting to reveal anewly discovered Titian. Yet, in this situation, if a reattribution to Lenbach is proven,we gain a more refined and accurate picture of both Titian’s and Lenbach’s careers.Such a reattribution renews possibilities as to the function of the oil sketch. PerhapsCrowe and Cavalcaselle were correct all along when they wrote that the sketch wasTitian’s “own private memorandum, his ‘pensee intime,’ meant for himself and forno other, a thing that was neither drawing nor painting yet partaking of both, andsufficient for the reproduction of either.”44

STEPHANIE R. MILLER is a lecturer at Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SouthCarolina. Her research interests include the enamel terracotta sculpture of Andrea dellaRobbia and his Franciscan altarpieces and the material culture of children in early modernItaly. She has contributed a chapter on Andrea’s Crucifixion altarpiece at La Verna to TheAnthology on Chapels (WAPACC/Text and Studies Series, 2010), various entries to theEncyclopedia of Sculpture (Fitzroy Dearborn, 2004), and she is currently coediting andcontributing to a book project on the domestic interior in early modern Italy.

1 Terisio Pignatti, “Abbozzi and Ricordi: New Observations on Titian’s Technique,” inTitian 500, ed. Joseph Manca, (Washington DC: National Gallery of Art, 1993),73–83; Carlo Ridolfi, The Life of Titian, ed. Julia Conway Bondanella, Peter Bonda-nella, et al., (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), 125, 137;Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ piu eccellentori pittori, scultori, ed architettori [1568], ed.Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 7 (Florence, 1878–1885), 495.

2 Modello is a term variously defined; for Titian this term often implies replica or copy ofthe finished work or sometimes a presentation sketch. Bruce Cole (“Titian and the Ideaof Originality,” in The Craft of Art: Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissanceand Baroque Workshop, ed. Andrew Ladis, Carolyn Wood, and William U. Eiland,[Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995], 92) stated that modelli in Titian’s studio“stood ready to serve as models for other replicas that were produced on demand.”When discussing this work, Cole argued that the Cincinnati work was not a“modello, but a preparatory oil sketch that would have been used to create the finishedportrait”; see Bruce Cole, Titian and Venetian Painting, 1450–1590 (Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 1999), 205. Pignatti, “Abbozzi and Ricordi,” 73 expands on the

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nature of sketches in Titian’s studio that some abbozzi (sketches) were “veritablericordi.”

3 Harold E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian: The Portraits, vol. 2, (London: PhaidonPress, 1971), 130.

4 Peter Pierson, Philip II of Spain (London: Thames & Hudson, 1975), 14–15.5 Charles Hope, “Titian and his Patrons,” in Titian: Prince of Painters (Venice: Marsilio

Editori, 1990), 84.6 Hope, “Titian and his Patrons,” 82, is the exception. Titian’s first trip to Augsburg was

in 1548.7 Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, 41, n. 145, 146: payment of 1,000 gold scudi; and

Mark W. Roskill, Dolce’s “Aretino” and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento(New York: New York University Press for the College Art Association, 1968), 253.

8 See Jennifer Liston’s article, “The Performance of Empire: Leone Leoni’s Charles V asVirtus Subduing Fury,” in this special issue.

9 J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, The Life and Times of Titian, vol. 2, (London: JohnMurray, 1881), 207–8.

10 Millard F. Rogers, Jr. and Lance R. Mayer, “Titian’s Modello of Philip,” Cincinnati ArtMuseum Bulletin 12, no. 4 (1984): 5; Ridolfi, Life of Titian, 124–25.

11 Giuseppe Cadorin, Dello Amore di Venezia di Tiziano delle sue case in Cadore e inVenezia (Venice, 1833), 113 and quoted in Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 5.

12 John Wilson, “Portrait of Philip II,” in Titian: Prince of Painters (Venice: MarisilioEditori, 1990), catalog supplement.

13 Cincinnati Art Museum Records; Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 5, n. 13, fromMrs. C. Lewis Hind to Mr. Gest; Lenbach wrote on August 18, 1881 to his friend PaulHeyse that the purchase of the Titians was “a big event for people like us”; see SonjaMehl, Franz von Lenbach (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1980), 100, from a private letter inthe Handschriftenabteilung, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (translation byAndrea Duskas).

14 Francesco Valcanover, All the Paintings of Titian, 4 vols. (New York: HawthorneBooks, 1960), 2: 39; Oskar Fischel (Tizian: Des meisters Gemalde [Stuttgart: DeutscheVerlags-Anstalt]) in his 1904, 1907, and 1911 editions of his book, writes thatthe finished version was in Lenbach’s collection, and it was not until his 1924edition that he states its location in the Habich collection in Kassel. The paintingwas perhaps in Habich’s sale on May 9–10, 1892.

15 Carl von Lutzow, “Kleine Mitteilungen,” Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst (1892): 168.16 However, Osvald Siren (“Tizians portratt av Kung Filip II av Spanien,” Nationalmusei

Arsbok 10 [1928]: 41–47) states that the painting was in the Rasch collection inStockholm in 1928.

17 Wethey, Paintings of Titian, 130–31. It should also be noted that Wethey had been incontact with Dr. Kreuger during the preparations for his book (Wethey, Paintings ofTitian, xi). At some point between 1971, when Wethey’s work was published, and1984, the finished painting’s location becomes unknown. In 1984, Rogers andMayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 6 and 10, n. 18 state that the finished version is the“portrait formerly owned by Dr. Thorsten Krueger [sic], Geneva.” Rogers andMayer were also in contact with Wethey for their publication and Wethey may haveconfirmed this change in location. Kreuger died in 1973.

18 Wethey, Paintings of Titian, 130–31; Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renais-sance: The Venetian School, 2 vols. (London: Phaidon Press, 1957), 1: 184, 2: 994;

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Rodolfo Pallucchini, Tiziano, vol. 1 (Florence: G. C. Scansono Editore, 1969), 300, fig.389; Valcanover, All the Paintings of Titian, 3: 39; Hans Tietze, Titian Paintings andDrawings, (Vienna: Phaidon Press, 1937).

19 John Spike, Italian Paintings in the Cincinnati Art Museum (Cincinnati: Cincinnati ArtMuseum, 1993), 93.

20 The Cincinnati portrait measures 108 × 94 cm and the Kreuger painting is recorded asmeasuring 96 × 75 cm. See Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 4 and 6.

21 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Life and Times of Titian, 206–7. In Cavalcaselle’s drawing anddescription, Cavalcaselle notes a “corona” by the beads on the caps. This suggests thata crown may have been easily visible beneath the beret when Lenbach acquired thepainting, perhaps prompting the beret’s removal.

22 Wethey, Paintings of Titian, 130.23 Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian–Mostly Iconographic (New York: New York

University Press, 1969), 82–83, he also suggested the possibility of a third lostpicture that they were referring to, and that this lost version was really the one inthe Barbarigo collection.

24 Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 7, 10, n. 16: the inscription was removed withsolvents and by scraping, and the lower border has been slightly trimmed. Thisdamaged area has now been overpainted.

25 A May 11, 1911 letter written by the artist’s widow, Lolo von Lenbach, describes thestate of the painting in 1884: “I remember that my husband told me and others that he,shortly after the purchase, removed the painting of the cap and that the beautifulcrown emerged”; in Portraits of Philip II of Spain and Francis I of France by Titian;Formerly in the possession of Count Sebastian Giustiniani Barbarigo [of Padua](London: Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1912), 8. Nevertheless, in a 1999 correspondence,David Bull, Chief Conservator at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC,astutely noted that we do not know precisely what Lenbach found when heremoved the beret.

26 This is the sketch now at Leeds, Harewood House; ca. 1538 (see Wethey, Paintings ofTitian, 101, no. 36).

27 Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 7.28 Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 7 and n.19: cross section revealed only some

hair and background drapery, and not when the crown was added; “microscopicexaminations of the crown, however, showed many large particles characteristic oforpiment (arsenic sulfide), a yellow pigment most commonly found in sixteenth-century Venetian painting.” Furthermore, azurite was found in the beret fragments,a mineral not readily on hand after 1750. See also Wilson, “Portrait of Philip II.”Many thanks to David Bull for reading this paper and also commenting on thisaspect. He feels that neither Titian nor his studio had anything to do with the crown.

29 Wilson, “Portrait of Philip II”; Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 7.30 Wethey, Paintings of Titian, 129–30.31 Pierson, Philip II of Spain, 27.32 Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 9.33 Rogers and Mayer, “Titian’s Modello,” 7.34 Wilson, “Portrait of Philip II,” citing Siren, “Tizians portratt av Kung Filip II av

Spanien,” 41–47; Lionello Venturi, Italian Paintings in America, 3 vols. (New York:E. Weyhe; Milan: U. Hoepli, 1933), 3: 523; Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures, 1:184, 2: 994.

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35 Lutzow, “Kleine Mitteilungen,” 168, was apparently the first to write of the finishedpainting in 1892, in which he states that this and other paintings of Philip II werebased on Titian’s work from the 1550 Augsburg meeting with Philip II; Tietze,Titian Paintings and Drawings, cites a 1925 article by August L. Mayer (“Tizianstu-dien,” Munchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, n.s., 2 [1925]: 267–74) stating thatboth versions relied on an unknown third version.

36 Christian Brinton, “Franz von Lenbach,” The Critic 39 (December 1901): 504, in adescription of Lenbach’s contemporary portraits, the author wrote that “behindeach canvas lurks the spirit of another and a greater artist,” and that Lenbach“began a copyist and has remained a copyist.”

37 Mehl, Franz von Lenbach, 100; Rosel Gollek & Winfried Ranke, Franz von Lenbach:1836–1904 (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1987); Siegfried Wichmann, Franz von Lenbachund seine Zeit (Cologne: M. DuMond Schauberg, 1973).

38 Professor Toni Roth from 1967; quoted in Mehl, Franz von Lenbach, 100.39 Mehl, Franz von Lenbach, 100, from Lenbach’s private letters at the Lenbach estate,

February 2, 1896 (translation by Andrea Duskas).40 Mehl, Franz von Lenbach, 100 (translation by Andrea Duskas).41 Let me also stress that while I propose Franz von Lenbach as the actual author of the

finished portrait, such a conclusion must remain speculative without access to the fin-ished painting. I would like to thank John Wilson and Steven Bonadies from the Cin-cinnati Art Museum and David Bull and David Brown from the National Gallery ofArt for their observations and suggestions. A Robert H. Smith travel fellowshipfrom the National Gallery of Art provided generous assistance in my research andtravel to the Cincinnati Art Museum and to the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus,Munich, which allowed me to compare the Titian oil sketch to other Old Mastercopies by Lenbach.

42 This also suggests that at some point Lenbach may have also made a copy of Titian’smodello of Francis I, which was also in the German artist’s collection.

43 Nicholas Barker, “Textual Forgery,” in Fake? The Art of Deception (London: BritishMuseum Publications, 1990), 22.

44 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Life and Times of Titian, 207.

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