World Museum Masterpieces at the Hermitage
Titian, Venus with a Mirror

On 24 May, 2002, World Museum Masterpieces at the Hermitage presented the exhibition of the famous Venus with a Mirror of one of the giants of Venetian Renaissance painting, Titian Vecellio (1477-1576).
The painting was created by the artist in the 1550s when he was past seventy. However, these years, as well as the preceding quarter of a century were the most creative period in Titian's life. His glory resounded throughout Europe and sovereigns flocked to order works from him. Charles V bestowed on him the title of Count Palatine, an honor no other painter has deserved.
Titian thought very high of his Venus with a Mirror and did not want to sell it while he was alive. He kept the painting to himself as a prototype for many variants and replicas made in the 1560s both by himself and his assistants (non of his own reproductions survive). After the artist's death his younger son sold his father's house and, before that, paintings including Venus to the Venetian patrician Christophoro Barbarigo. Palazzo Barbarigo housed the great master's canvases for almost three centuries. The dynasty became extinct in the first half of the 19th century, and the collection was sold. In 1850 the Barbarigo Gallery was purchased by Nicholas I for the Hermitage. Venus with a Mirror was displayed side by side with the equally renowned Penitent Mary Magdalen in similar ancient carved frames in one of the Italian Studies of the New Hermitage.
In the 1920-1930s, Venus with a Mirror shared the fate of many masterpieces in the Hermitage collection. In 1931 it was sold to Andrew Mellon. Since 1937 its home is the National Gallery in Washington.

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Exhibition's curator Irina S. Artemyeva at the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition

The booklet