Portrait of a General (Titian)
|
| Portrait of a general |
|---|
| Titian , around 1550 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 229 × 155.5 cm |
| Old Masters Picture Gallery, Kassel |
Portrait of a General is a Renaissance painting by Titian . It belongs to the collection of the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Kassel .
Image description
Titian's painting was created around 1550 in the Cinquecento . The life-size portrait probably shows Giovanni Frances Acquavita, Duke of Atri . The imposing appearance of the sitter suggests that he was dealing with an important general whom Titian reproduced with great inventiveness and richly graded coloring . The general depicted with a Titian red robe, chain mail, lance and hunting dog, in which the claim to power of the renaissance man becomes evident, represents the embodiment of the god of war Mars . Cupid plays with the weapons of the Roman god of war in front of a river landscape, whose flaky, illusionistic painting style creates a threatening atmospheric effect. The landscape was added by Titian in 1560.
Provenance
The portrait image of a general was acquired in Paris in 1756 for Wilhelm VIII , Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel . The painter Gerard Hoet acted as his art dealer and bought the picture at the auction of the collection of Marie-Joseph d'Hostun de la Baume-Tallard (1683–1755). Previously, the painting was offered in Paris in May 1733 at the auction of the Charles Clinet de la Chataigneraye collection and in 1742 at the auction of the Vittorio Amedeo I di Savoia-Carignano collection .
literature
- Jürgen M. Lehmann: State Art Collections Kassel. Catalog 1. Italian, French and Spanish paintings from the 16th to 18th centuries. Century . Fridingen 1980, pp. 256-259.
- Bernhard Schnackenburg (Hrsg.): Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, complete catalog . Staatliche Museen Kassel, von Zabern, Mainz 1996, ISBN 3-8053-1839-1 , p. 296.