New Titian discovery unveiled at the Prado
November 5 2012
Picture: Museo Prado
In September, I mentioned (actually, it was a bit of scoop, in English at least) that the Prado would soon be unveiling a newly discovered Titian of St John the Baptist from their collection. Now, the restoration of this previously over-looked and much damaged original has been completed, and the picture will be the subject of a new mini-exhibition. From the Prado website:
Saint John the Baptist is the only work by Titian in the Prado not to have originally been in the Spanish royal collections. Rather, it came via the Museo de la Trinidad, entering the Museum in 1872 as by an “anonymous Madrid School artist of the seventeenth century”. As such it was sent fourteen years later to the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Cantoria in the province of Almeria.
[...] in 2007 the Museum embarked on a study of the work, reaching the conclusion that it was not a copy but an original by Titian. Technical characteristics such as the preparatory layer of white lead with added calcium carbonate as well as the similarity between the landscape and those found in other works by the artist of the early 1550s allowed for its date to be established.
The painting arrived at the Museum in extremely poor physical condition. The recent, outstanding restoration by Clara Quintanilla has recovered the composition’s legibility by re-establishing the balance between the figure and its setting. Furthermore, in the less damaged areas (the sky and landscape) it is now possible to appreciate Titian’s grandeur and subtlety. The importance of this new Saint John the Baptist is not, however, aesthetic (the work is too damaged) but rather documentary. Firstly, research has shown that this was one of the artist’s most popular religious compositions in Spain, evident in the large number of copies that have been identified. The fact that the earliest are from Zaragoza and nearby suggest that the painting’s first owner lived there, who may well have been Martín de Gurrea y Aragón, 4th Duke of Villahermosa (1526-1581). Secondly, the painting constitutes an exceptionally important record of how Titian repeated his compositions (see below). Finally, it provides information on the other two versions of the subject, strengthening the arguments for the autograph status of the El Escorial painting, which has recently been questioned.
All very interesting, but excuse me for saying that, on the basis of this photo, the restoration leaves something to be desired. The formless drapery, the overly rendered face, and in fact most of the body (what's with those curious toes?), looks as if it has been restored in the same workshop as the famous Fresco Jesus. It's interesting that the Prado has not published a high resolution image - surely, if the museum wants us to believe that, despite the damage, this is really a Titian, we need to not only see a decent photo of the picture as it is now, but, more importantly, one showing the picture stripped down, so that at least we can see what remains of original Titian there are left (not much, I suspect).
Update - find more coverage in The Art Newspaper.
Update II - a reader writes:
In light of the most recent case (Titian, ‘St John the Baptist’, Prado) do you agree that restorers should, in such drastic cases, be strictly prohibited from extensively repainting canvases? The most important value of any painting, whatever remains of it, is artistic, and that lies solely in the original and not in any subsequent repainting that hopes to represent what the original might have once looked like. In such drastic cases (here, of the entire work, only the lamb seems to have been left relatively undisturbed) they might as well have started a fresh canvas, perhaps then placing it alongside the damaged but stabilised work for the sake of comparison. What’s the point of covering up a Titian??
Take your important Queen Henrietta Maria Van Dyck as a valid case in point. Whatever the state of the original was, you vested all of your primary interest in the overpainted hand of Van Dyck. This understandably justified the stripping away of the perhaps more compositionally pleasing 18th Century additions, and this despite running the risk of ending up with no composition to appreciate at all. In Spain’s latest Titian case, the thought process was totally reversed. I’m guessing the Fresco Jesus Fever (FJF) didn’t help when deciding the original’s fate. Perhaps the Prado are looking for a new pop icon? They in fact used the same… logic? as Ms Gimenez.
Titian approves of this message.
In this case, I think I agree. Though of course I would want to see an image of the stripped down Titian first.
