Venus of Urbino
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (about 1488 to 1576) · 1538
A young woman lies naked on a bed of white sheets, propped on a pillow, and looks straight at you with a calm, knowing expression. In her right hand she holds a small bunch of roses; a little dog sleeps curled at her feet. Behind her a dark curtain divides the picture, and in the room beyond two maids search through a carved chest for her clothes while the evening light falls through a window. Titian finished the canvas in 1538 for Guidobaldo della Rovere, the future Duke of Urbino, and it has been called the most influential nude in Western art.
Look at the flesh. Titian built it up in warm glazes so the skin seems lit from within, and he set it against cool white linen and a deep green curtain to make it glow. The composition is a lesson in balance: the horizontal body, the vertical edge of the curtain that falls exactly at the woman's hand, and the receding tiles that pull your eye into the room. Details carry meanings. The roses are the flowers of Venus, the myrtle on the windowsill stands for constancy, and the sleeping dog for fidelity, which is why many read the picture as a celebration of marriage.
The painting came to Florence in 1631 as part of the inheritance of Vittoria della Rovere, and it hung for centuries in the Uffizi's Tribuna. Manet studied it before painting his Olympia in 1863, and Mark Twain, visiting the gallery, called it the foulest picture the world possesses, which only added to its fame. It now hangs in a dedicated room protected by climate controlled glass. A memorable detail is the small dog, which Titian reused in other portraits and which seems entirely unbothered by the drama around it.
Did You Know? Mark Twain was so scandalised by the painting in 1880 that he called it the foulest picture in the world, which only made more people come to see it.
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