ThePardo Venus is a painting by the Venetian artistTitian, completed in 1551 and now in theLouvre Museum. It is also known asJupiter and Antiope, since it seems to show the story ofJupiter andAntiope from Book VI of theMetamorphoses (lines 110-111). It is Titian's largest mythological painting,[1] and was the first major mythological painting produced by the artist forPhilip II of Spain. It was long kept in theRoyal Palace of El Pardo nearMadrid (not to be confused with thePrado, a purpose-built museum), hence its usual name; whetherVenus is actually represented is uncertain. It later belonged to the English and French royal collections.
Analysis of its style and composition shows that Titian modified a Bacchanalian scene he had begun much earlier in his career by completing the landscape background and adding figures. ForSydney Freedberg it was "probably in substance an invention of the later 1530s, though significantly reworked later; it is full of motifs and ideas that have been recollected from an earlier and more Giorgionesque time, ordered in an obvious and uncomplicated classicizing scheme."[2]
Though, if Antiope is the nude, the painting meets the basic definition of Titian'spoesie series, mythological scenes fromOvid painted for Philip II, the painting is typically not counted in the series, either as it was begun well before Titian used the term in a letter to the Spanish King, or because the nude is indeed Venus, in which case no such scene is described by Ovid.[3]
As to the subject, Titian himself appears to describe it simply as "the landscape", and his sonOrazio calls it "the nude woman with the landscape and the satyr", both in letters to Philip II, but later an inventory of El Pardo calls it "Jupiter and Antiope".[4] In Madrid in the 1620s,Vicente Carducho (d. 1638, see below) referred to its subject as "Antiope and some shepherds and satyrs on a large canvas".[5] In the correspondence of the French and Spanish ambassadors as Charles I's collection was being sold in 1649-53, the nude is "Venus".[6] Malcolm Bull observed: "In later inventories the terms "naked woman" and "Venus" are almost interchangeable", and the presence of her son Cupid an uncertain indicator, as he often appears with other people.[7]
The painting is very large, and the figures somewhat disconnected, the composition divided into two by the tree at centre. In the right foreground we have a scene that would have been familiar to well-educated Renaissance viewers as Jupiter, having taken the form of asatyr, creeping up on the sleeping nymph Antiope, and lifting her drapery to view her naked. He will shortly rape her. Possibly the situation is only borrowed from this story, but all Titian's other mythological paintings for Philip show scenes from Ovid, where Antiope's story features (Metamorphoses, VI, 110-111). Scenes of satyr voyeurism or sexual assault, given titles such asNymph Surprised by a Satyr, are found in art, mostly later than this, but only a very rash satyr would treat the goddess Venus in this way. The painting can be compared to hisThe Bacchanal of the Andrians of 1523-24 (Prado), where an apparently unconscious nude in a version of theDresden Venus pose shares the picture space with a group of revellers in a mixture of nudity, contemporary and classical dress.
Venus or Antiope sleeps as yet undisturbed, not only by the voyeur, but a hunting scene above her, where hounds have brought down a stag, and immediately left of her, a satyr orfaun with the legs of agoat seated on the ground, in conversation with a lady in contemporary dress. Immediately beside them stands a hunter, with large dogs, and at far left another huntsman blows a horn.[8]
Over Venus' head,Cupid perches in a tree, with an arrow in his bow, apparently pointed at Jupiter. In the middle distance a naked couple, apparently both women, talk or kiss on the banks of a river. The river has a wide waterfall above the stag, and presumably then flows above the conversing couple before perhaps circling round behind the viewer to create the water behind the Jupiter/satyr, but this is not shown clearly, which is rather typical of Titian. To the right, the landscape includes a contemporary farmhouse at the top of the rise, and a distant settlement dominated by a church tower and steeple. Distant mountains complete the view, which like many Titian landscapes reflects the country between Venice and his hometown ofPieve di Cadore in the mountains, though he does not seem to have closely depicted specific locations.[9]
Art historians have struggled somewhat in trying to find a coherent meaning for these disparate elements. Their incongruous combination makes it something of a test case for a long-running dispute over the extent to which Titian's mythological paintings (and to some extent those of Venetian painters in general) carry "great complexity of allegorical meanings", in the way that some works of other Renaissance artists are generally accepted to do.[10]
Harold Wethey was not impressed by the idea that the different elements represented different modes of life: "active" in the hunters, "voluptuous" in Venus/Antiope and Jupiter, and "contemplative" in the couple sitting on the grass.[11] Another line of thinking is to compare Venus to the stag brought down by the hounds, the stag then becoming acerf fragile, in an old Gothic visual metaphor with the hunted stag representing the life and trials ofChrist or man. This draws on a wealth of imagery in religious writings, ultimately going back toPsalm 41/42: "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God..".[12]
Alternatively it can be seen as an essentially decorative piling-up of different groups of subject matter with no overall complex meaning intended, but an impressive effect.
The painting is a development of Titian's compositions with a reclining female nude in the Venetian style. The pose of thePardo Venus, recalling aVenus pudica pose with one arm covering the genitals, is similar to that inGiorgione'sDresden Venus, which was completed by Titian after Giorgione's death in 1510. Around 1534 Titian had painted theVenus of Urbino, and a similar scene from 1545, perhaps a lost recordedVenus sent to Charles V, "was the basis" for theVenus and Musician series, which exists in several versions.[13] Unlike the others, the Cupid in most versions ofVenus and Musician, and probably in thePardo Venus, does allow a clear identification of the female as Venus.[14] However, allusions to the goddess elevate such images from the profane category ofcourtesans.[15]
Kenneth Clark described thePardo Venus as a "laboured attempt to recapture his early style", and the Dresden/Urbino pose here "much coarsened".[16] 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 theseries ofDanaë paintings, which Clark sees as Titian adopting the conventions for the nude prevailing outside Venice; "in the rest of Italy bodies of an entirely different shape had long been fashionable".[17]
For Clark, the Venus of theVenus 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 whomPalma Vecchio,Paris Bordone andBonifazio painted for local consumption."[18]
In 1574, Titian had still not been paid for the painting, according to a list he sent Philip's secretary andfavouriteAntonio Pérez. The painting was still in El Pardo when most of the palace burnt down in 1603, with the loss of several Titians and other important art.Vicente Carducho (1576/78–1638), an Italian-born court painter in Spain, records that when he heard the news, the first question of KingPhilip III of Spain was to ask if the Venus had been lost. Told that it survived, he is said to have commented "I am satisfied, for the rest will be redone".[19]
Despite this prestige, the painting was given toCharles I of England in 1623 when, asPrince of Wales, he made a quixotic, unauthorized and unplanned visit toMadrid to try to acquire a Spanish bride.[20] A copy made in London hangs inHam House. After Charles' execution, the valuers assessing his collection inWhitehall Palace found the "great Lardge and famous peece" in the "Second and Middle Privie Lodging Roome", along with theVenus and Musician now in the Prado, and valued them at £500 and £150 respectively.[21] They were both bought on the same day in 1649 at one of the sales of Charles' art collection byColonel John Hutchinson, who paid £600 and £165.[22] Hutchinson was buying as an investment, and as the major continental collectors realized the situation and organized agents, he sold all his major purchases within a few years.[23]
Alonso de Cárdenas the Spanish ambassador, managing purchases in England a year or two later, declined to buy thePardo Venus, preferringCorreggio'sVenus with Mercury and Cupid ('The School of Love') (nowNational Gallery, London), as "no es tan profano como la otra, Venus dormido y el Satyro" ("it is not as profane as the other, Venus sleeping and the satyr").[24] In 1653, Hutchinson skillfully negotiated Bordeaux-Neufville, who combined the roles of French ambassador andCardinal Mazarin's art agent, into paying £1,200 for it.[25] It was acquired from Mazarin's heirs in 1661 byLouis XIV, and remained in the French royal collection until this passed to the Louvre Museum.[26]
