Venus and Musician

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The Venetian Renaissance painter Titian and

his workshop produced many versions of
Venus and Musician, which may be known by
various other titles specifying the elements,
such as Venus with an Organist, Venus with a
Lute-player, and so on.[1] Most versions have a
man playing a small organ on the left, but in
others a lute is being played. Venus has a small
companion on her pillows, sometimes a Cupid
and in other versions a dog, or in Berlin
both.[2] The paintings are thought to date from
the late 1540s onwards.

Many of Titian's paintings exist in several Venus and Musician or Venus with an Organist and a Dog, Prado,
versions, especially his nude mythological c. 1550
subjects. Later versions tend to be mostly or
entirely by his workshop, with the degree of
Titian's personal contribution uncertain and the subject
of differing views. All the versions of the Venus and
Musician are in oil on canvas, and fall into two
proportions and sizes, with two of the organist versions
wider.[3]

The five versions generally regarded as at least largely

by Titian are, with an organist, the two in Madrid and
one in Berlin, and with a lutenist those in Cambridge
and New York.[4] Another version in the Uffizi in
Florence is less highly regarded, and has no musician,
but a Cupid, as well as a black and white dog at the
foot of the bed, eyeing a partridge on the parapet.[5]

In all the versions Venus' bed appears to be set in a Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, with lute-player and
loggia or against a large open window with a low stone Cupid, c. 155565
wall or parapet. Venus is shown at full-length,
reclining on pillows. The musician sits on the end of the bed with his
back to her, but is turned round to look towards her. By contrast she
looks away to the right. He wears contemporary 16th-century dress, as
do any small figures in the landscape backgrounds, and has a sword or
dagger at his belt. A large red drape takes up the top left corner, and the
top right corner in the less wide versions. There is a wide landscape
outside, falling into two types. The two Prado versions show avenues of
trees and a fountain in what seems to be the gardens of a palace. The Gemldegalerie Berlin, organist, dog
other versions have a more open landscape, leading to distant and Cupid, 115 x 210 cm
mountains.[6]

Contents
1 Titian's reclining nudes
2 Allegory?
3 The Prado's two versions
 4 Lutenist versions
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading

Titian's reclining nudes

The painting is the final development of Titian's compositions with a
reclining female nude in the Venetian style. After Giorgione's death in
1510 Titian had completed his Dresden Venus, and then around 1534
had painted the Venus of Urbino. A repetition of this from 1545, perhaps
a lost recorded Venus sent to Charles V, "was the basis" for the Venus
and Musician series.[7] Unlike these, the Cupid in most versions of
Venus and Musician does allow a clear identification of the female as
Venus, despite the modern decor.[8]

Otherwise the painting falls into the category showing courtesans, Titian's Venus of Urbino, c. 1534,
though these are also often described as "Venus", if only to retain some Uffizi, largely the same pose in
propriety. In all an unembarassed Venus is completely naked, except for reverse
a gauzy cloth over her crotch in some versions, but wears several pieces
of very expensive jewellery,[9] typical aspects of courtesan
pictures.[10] The musician is smartly dressed, and carries a
blade weapon, in several versions a large sword with gilded
fittings. He could be taken as the client of an expensive
Venetian courtesan.

Other reclining nudes are the Pardo Venus (or Jupiter and
Antiope, now in the Louvre), "that laboured attempt to
recapture his early style",[11] from the mid-1540s. A more
original composition and physique, also begun in the mid-
1540s, but with versions painted in the 1550s and perhaps
1560s, is used in the series of Dana paintings, which
Kenneth Clark sees as Titian adopting the conventions for Venus and Cupid with Dog and Partridge, mostly
the nude prevailing outside Venice; "in the rest of Italy Titian's workshop, c. 1555, Uffizi
bodies of an entirely different shape had long been
fashionable".[12]

For Clark, the Venus of the Venus and Musician versions, where the head changes direction but the body
remains exactly the same, is "entirely Venetian, younger sister of all those expensive ladies whom Palma
Vecchio, Paris Bordone and Bonifazio painted for local consumption."[13] The nude figures are "rich, heavy
and a trifle coarse ... the Venuses of this series are not provocative. The almost brutal directness with which
their bodies are presented to us makes them, now that their delicate texture has been removed by restoration,
singularly un-aphrodisiac. Moreover, they are far more coneventionalized than is evident at first sight."[14]

Allegory?
The erotic appeal of the subject is evident, but some critics have argued for a more allegorical meaning to do
with the appreciation of beauty through both the eyes and ears, and the superiority of the former.[15] Whereas
the two Prado organists still seem to be playing, with one hand on the keyboard in the first version, and two in
the second, the Berlin organist has abandoned playing to gaze at Venus, a point given great significance by
Erwin Panofsky, as representing the "triumph of the sense of sight over the sense of hearing".[16] The depiction
of the organs has been criticized by organ scholars: "The pipes are too squat, and if they sounded at all would
produce a tubby, inelegant wallowing".[17]
The lutenists are able to turn their instruments along with their body, and both seem to continue playing.
According to Panofsky, this "means that a musician interrupted in the act of making music by the sight of visual
beauty embodied in Venus has been transformed into a musician doing homage to the visual beauty embodied
in Venus by the very act of making music. It is difficult to play the organ and to admire a beautiful woman at
the same time; but it is easy to serenade her, as it were, to the accompaniment of a lute, while giving full
attention to her charms."[18]

Although there is no inevitable contradiction between an allegorical interpretation and a more straightforward
decorative and erotic one, more recent scholars have often rejected or at least played down the allegorical
interpretation. Ulrich Middeldorf, in 1947, began the reaction: "The main figures in Titian's Sacred and Profane
Love (Galleria Borghese, Rome) possess a dignity and purity that make any high-flung interpretation of the
picture seem acceptable. It is quite a unique picture, which we can well imagine as painted to suit the elevated
tastes of an extremely refined person. The character of Titian's later Venuses and Danaes, however, seems to
place them on an infinitely lower level. They are beautiful, but vulgar in comparison to the Sacred and Profane
Love. Also the fact that they were produced in an extraordinary number of replicas does not encourage an
attempt to look in them for purity of thought . . . . In brief, the suspicion can hardly be avoided that these
pictures were rather 'ornamental furniture' than profound philosophical treatises. And the rooms which they . . .
were supposed to decorate, were bedrooms."[19]

The Prado's two versions

The earliest record of a version of the composition is one
with an organist known to have been painted for Charles V,
Holy Roman Emperor when Titian was in Augsburg in
1548, which the emperor then gave to his minister, Cardinal
Granvelle. But it is not certain which this is, though both
versions in the Museo del Prado in Madrid have been
asserted to be it, especially the Venus with an Organist and
Dog, the wider of the two (148 x 217 cm; this is Prado
420). This is now thought by the Prado to date to about
1550,[20] so ruling it out of being the original Cardinal
Granvelle picture, which was the usual opinion until the
Prado revised its date recently.[21] It has a dog and is the
only version discussed here with no Cupid. Following the The Prado's second version, with a cupid, c. 1555
Prado's redating, the version given by Charles V to
Granvelle is regarded as missing, and presumed lost.[22]

Although lacking Venus' attribute of Cupid, the painting is always recorded as showing the goddess. Unlike
other versions, it is thought that the painting may celebrate a marriage. The woman wears a wedding ring and
has none of the traditional attributes of Venus. Compared to other Venuses by Titian, she is not accompanied by
a Cupid and "it is the only one in which both figures have individualised features".[23]

Radiography reveals that Titian made alterations during the painting's execution. Originally the work was more
daring; Venus lay uninhibitedly with her gaze fixed on the musician, which none of the versions discussed here
have. Probably the client or the artist thought that the arrangement was too provocative, so Venus' head was
turned, and a lap dog added to give her something to look at, and also touch, so reinforcing any allegory of the
senses that might be intended. Venus is now given a more passive role.[24]

It belonged to a lawyer called Francesco Assonica, who was used professionally by Titian and is mentioned as a
friend of the artist, and had other Titians.[25] Possibly it was painted for him. It remained in Venice until the
1620s, and was sketched there by Anthony van Dyck, and probably in connection with him acquired for the
collection of Charles I of England. After his execution it was bought for 165 by Colonel John Hutchinson at
the sale of Charles' art in 1649. The same day Hutchinson paid 600 for Titian's Pardo Venus, or Jupiter and
Antiope. In 1651/52 it was bought for 600 by David Teniers the Younger as agent for the Habsburgs, and sent
to Madrid for the Spanish royal collection, where it remained before the collection was transferred to the
Prado.[26] [27] A number of copies were made during the painting's time in England, and the Royal Collection
had one by the time of Charles II of England, which is possibly the good copy they still have.[28]

The Prado's other version, Venus with an Organist and Cupid, (148 x 217 cm, Prado 421, signed "TITIANUS
F.") with a Cupid rather than a dog, has been thought by some to date from 154748, but they currently date it
to c. 1555. Miguel Falomir says that recent x-ray and infra-red reflectography make it clear that this was traced
from the other Prado version (though they were not re-united again in the Spanish royal collection for over a
century). Titian and his studio often used tracing of the main elements to make replica versions.[29]

This too used to be thought to be Charles V and Granvelle's version from 1648, which the current dating would
rule out, if correct. It has been in the Spanish royal collection since at least 1626, when Cassiano del Pozzo
recorded it in Madrid, and features in later inventories. It was thought that it was one of Granvell's painting
bought (through imperial arm-twisting) by Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from Ganvelle's heirs in 1600, and
was later given to Philip III of Spain.[30] Hugh Trevor-Roper thought that the organist "has the features of
Philip [II]",[31] but this seems to be a minority view among recent sources.

Lutenist versions
The two main versions of Venus and Cupid with a Lute-
player are similar in all but details. The one in the
Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge is the earlier, dated by
the museum to 155565, measuring 150.5 x 196.8 cm, and
attributed just to Titian. It probably belonged to Rudolf II,
Holy Roman Emperor, and was certainly in the Imperial
Collection in Prague by 1621. It then followed the path of
the best of this collection: looted by the Swedes in 1648,
taken to Rome by Queen Christina of Sweden when she
abdicated, sold to the Orleans Collection after her death,
and finally auctioned in London after the French
Revolution. It was bought by Richard FitzWilliam, 7th
Viscount FitzWilliam in 1798/99, whose bequest of his
collections at his death in 1816 founded the museum.[32] Venus with an Lutenist, c. 156570, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art dates its version, which it
calls Venus and the Lute Player, to c. 156570 (65 x 82 1/2
inches/165.1 x 209.6 cm), and attributes it to Titian and his workshop. It has been traced from the Cambridge
version, and there may well have been a cartoon or a "studio version" for copying kept in Venice.[33] It may
have been kept in the studio for many years, being worked on sporadically, as the landscape, which is of high
quality, "painted with speed and authority in Titian's freest style",[34] seems to match his style of about 1560,
but other parts do not. Possibly it was unfinished at Titian's death in 1576, and then "following his death,
certain parts such as Venus's face and hands were brought to a much higher degree of finish", and some areas
left unfinished.[35]

The New York version belonged to members of the royal family of Savoy from at the latest 1624 until some
time after 1742. It then came to England and was owned by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (d. 1759) and
his heirs until sold to the dealer Joseph Duveen in 1930, who sold it to the museum in 1933.[36]

Other versions with a lute-player, perhaps at least from Titian's workshop, are one in Bordeaux, and one
destroyed in World War II in Dresden.[37]

Notes

1. Loh, 41. Venus with an Organist and a Dog and so forth.

 2. Loh, 42
3. Falomir, 6168, and Loh throughout are both analyses of Titian's "replicas and variants"; Christiansen
4. Prado; Christiansen
5. Christiansen
6. Loh, 4042; McIver, 1417
7. Falomir, 6162
8. Falomir, 67
9. McIver, 14
10. Hollander, 314-21, for two views on "courtesan" pictures
11. Clark, 121
12. Clark, 122123, 122 quoted
13. Clark, 122
14. Clark, 122123
15. Falomir, 189190, note 30, summarizes the "passionate debate", as does Christiansen; Prado
16. McIver, 1320; Panofsky quoted in Yearsley
17. Yearsley
18. McIver, 1320; Panofsky quoted in Yearsley
19. Quoted by Christiansen
20. Falomir, 6465
21. See eg Brotton, 236 or Loh, 40, who predate this revision. But in 1996 the Prado catalogue cited re Prado
421, the other version, thought that was Granvelle's painting.
22. Christiansen
23. Falomir, 6667; Prado, quoted; McIver, 1819
24. Prado; McIver, 16
25. Penny, 93
26. Brotton, 236, 270
27. Prado
28. Venus with an Organist, "after Titian, c.1550-1660" (https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/40266
9/venus-with-an-organist-0), Royal Collection page
29. Falomir, 6466
30. Museo del Prado, Catlogo de las pinturas, 1996, p. 401, Ministerio de Educacin y Cultura, Madrid,
ISBN 8487317537
31. Trevor-Roper, 52
32. Venus and Cupid with a lute-player (http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?oid=654)
Fitzwilliam page
33. Christiansen; see Penny, 280284 for a similar discussion relating to Venus and Adonis.
34. Hartt, 603
35. Venus and the Lute Player (http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/36.29/) Metropolitan page,
quoted; Christiansen
36. MMA Provenance section, same webpage as Christiansen
37. McIver, 20 note 7

References
Brotton, Jerry, The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection, 2007, Pan
Macmillan, ISBN 9780330427098
Christiansen, Keith, Catalogue Entry, Metroplitan Museum website, extracted from ?, 2010
Clark, Kenneth, The Nude, A Study in Ideal Form, orig. 1949, various edns, page refs from Pelican edn of
1960
Falomir, Miguel, "Titian's Replicas and Variants", in Jaff, David (ed), Titian, The National Gallery
Company/Yale, London 2003, ISBN 1 857099036
Freedburg, Sidney J.. Painting in Italy, 15001600, 3rd edn. 1993, Yale, ISBN 0300055870
Hartt, Frederick, History of Italian Renaissance Art, (2nd edn.)1987, Thames & Hudson (US Harry N
Abrams), ISBN 0500235104
Hollander, Anne, "Titian and Women", in Feeding the Eye: Essays, 2000, University of California Press,
ISBN 0520226593, 9780520226593, google books
 Loh, Maria H., Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of Early Modern Italian Art, 2007,
Getty Publications, ISBN 089236873X, 9780892368730, google books
McIver, Katherine A., in Carroll, Linda L. (ed), "Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early
Modern Italy", 2017, Routledge, ISBN 1351548980, 9781351548984, google books
Penny, Nicholas, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings,
Volume II, Venice 15401600, 2008, National Gallery Publications Ltd, ISBN 1857099133
"Prado": Prado commentary webpage, on their "main" or first version
Trevor-Roper, Hugh; Princes and Artists, Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts 15171633,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1976, ISBN 0500232326
Yearsley, David, "The Love Goddess, the Organists, Their Organs, Titian and Van Eyck", Counterpunch,
7 October 2011, online

Further reading
Panofsky, Erwin, Problems in Titian, mostly Iconographic, 1969

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