Titian: Women, Myth & Power Gallery Guide

Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, transformed Western art. Employed by the Holy Roman Emperor, several princes, two popes, and the city of Venice, he forged a peerless international reputation as Europe’s leading portraitist and master of mythological subjects. Titian was as much a legend in the Gilded Age as he was in his own time. In 1896, Isabella Stewart Gardner bought the Rape of Europa, which became the most famous Renaissance artwork in America.

This exhibition brings together Europa with her five companions, reuniting a legendary series of six mythological paintings called the “poesie,” painted poetries, commissioned by King Philip II of Spain. Titian created them for Philip between 1551 and 1562, responding to ancient Roman myths, above all through the poetry of Ovid, in majestic color and with unprecedented originality. Titian’s relationship with Philip was the most productive of his career, and its artistic legacy endures. Inspired by his work, painters of subsequent centuries—including Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez—transformed Titian into an icon and shaped the future of painting in his wake.

We invite you to consider Titian’s poesie from multiple perspectives, then and now. Portraits of Philip and his older wife, Queen Mary Tudor, help us to imagine their points of view. Scholars and artists share personal insights into individual paintings with audio stops. Newly commissioned responses by the contemporary artists Barbara Kruger (Body Language on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade) and Mary Reid and Patrick Kelley (The Rape of Europa in the Fenway Gallery) engage with questions of power, agency, and sexuality as relevant today as they were in the Renaissance. Together they help us to reconsider Titian for a new era.

Titian: Women, Myth & Power explores themes of sexual assault and violence.

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Acquiring Europa

Adolf de Meyer (French, 1868–1949), Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1906. Platinum print
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (P33w36)

Bernard Berenson, 1898.
Houghton Library, Harvard University. Photo: Edmund Houghton

Considered a “mighty poet” by the novelist Henry James, Titian rose to the top of Gilded Age collectors’ shopping lists. In 1896, Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased Titian’s Rape of Europa from an English aristocrat through her close friend, the art dealer Bernard Berenson. The first major painting by Titian acquired in the United States, it became the crown jewel in her collection and a local sensation. Gardner arranged a gallery of her new museum around Europa and named it after the artist. In the Titian Room, she installed Venetian artworks, portraits depicting members of the Habsburg family, and interpretations of the same mythological story by other artists, two of which are displayed nearby.

Display Case

All objects in this case are from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

A circular bronze relief portraying Europa on a horse.

A letter in black ink on a letterhead titled 42 Washington Mews.

A black and white image of the Rape of Europa.

A more detailed black and white image of the Rape of Europa.

A black and white photo of Isabella Stewart Gardner's personal residence with Titian's Rape of Europa on the wall.

Attributed to Anthony van Dyck (Antwerp, 1599–1641, London)

The Rape of Europa

1628–40

Pencil, red chalk, and watercolor on paper

Shortly after Gardner purchased Europa, Berenson sent her a gift. The drawing—either a copy after her painting or after the copy by Rubens today in the Museo Nacional del Prado—commemorates the landmark acquisition. Occupying a table in Gardner’s Titian Room, it demonstrates the impact of this composition on subsequent generations of artists.

Bernard Berenson (Butrimonys, Lithuania, 1865–1959, Florence)

Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Rome

10 May 1896

When it came to persuading Isabella Stewart Gardner, Bernard Berenson knew how to write a compelling pitch. In this letter, he introduced the Titian as a substitute for a popular portrait by the British painter Thomas Gainsborough that she had wanted but failed to acquire. He called Europa “the finest Italian picture ever again to be sold.”

Bernard Berenson (Butrimonys, Lithuania, 1865–1959, Florence)

Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Paris

18 June 1896

Even after Gardner agreed to buy Europa, Berenson needed several weeks to seal the deal, while she waited in anticipation. Finally, he wrote, “At last, after suspense that to me has been harrowing the Europa is yours.”

Henry James (New York, 1843–1916, London)

Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from Paris

3 April 1898

The novelist Henry James and Isabella Stewart Gardner were close friends and correspondents. Astonished with the acquisition of Europa, he inquired, “Is the Pope going to sell you one of the rooms of the Vatican?”

Paul Manship (Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1885–1966, New York)

Rape of Europa

1917

Bronze

Isabella Stewart Gardner’s collection provided inspiration to contemporary artists. In 1917, her friend, the sculptor Paul Manship sent Gardner a bronze relief of Europa inspired by her Titian painting. Gardner installed it in the Titian Room on the table beneath Europa with other related objects.

Paul Manship (Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1885–1966, New York)

Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner from New York City

25 December 1917

Introducing his relief to Gardner, Manship wrote, “Mr. Titian has proved that Europa & the Bull is a great subject—This bronze relief is to try out the subject for composition—How do you think it will work out in the round, I want to try it.”

Isabella Stewart Gardner (New York, 1840–1924, Boston)

Catalogue MCM

1900

Bound album: photographs, ink, paper

Gardner kept track of her ever-growing collection in this handwritten catalogue. Celebrating this remarkable acquisition, she included an image of Titian’s Europa in it, accompanied by a photograph of the copy by Rubens currently in the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Isabella Stewart Gardner (New York, 1840–1924, Boston)

Catalogue of 152 Beacon Street

1899

Printed ink on paper

In 1899, before the Museum was built, Gardner opened her Beacon Street home to the public. This printed guide to the collection records the celebrated Europa, hanging in pride of place in the Drawing Room (as seen in the following photograph). Proceeds from the exhibition supported the nation’s first school for children with disabilities, today called the Cotting School.

Charles D. Christoph (active, early 20th century)

Europa

1923

Printed ink on paper

Gardner’s art collection inspired writers as well as visual artists. In 1923, the Atlantic Monthly magazine published this poem about the mythological heroine. Given the prominence of Gardner’s painting, it is tempting to wonder if her Titian inspired the author.

Rape of Europa
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Photo: Thomas E. Marr

Restoring Titian’s Europa

Titian painted Europa with high quality materials and brilliant colors. Conservators recently undertook the first comprehensive cleaning and analysis of this painting, resulting in the new insights into Titian’s techniques featured in this room.

The Work

Two conservators standing over the back of a painting.

A side by side of the original vibrancy of the painting versus the dark hue prior to conservation.

To prepare the painting for travel, conservators examined its strainer. The strainer—or stretcher—keeps the painting’s canvas taut and well supported. Age and insect damage compromised the structural integrity of this one, which was original to the painting. Conservators built a new one, replacing the damaged strainer and attaching the canvas to it.

Over the centuries, dirt and discolored varnish obscured Europa. Scientific analysis revealed that Titian’s vibrant paint layers remained well-preserved underneath. The painstaking process of safely cleaning the painting unfolded over six months, recovering Titian’s radiant colors and returning Europa to her original glory.

Pigments

A close up of the sky with clouds. — Titian cleverly envisioned a sky in transition, from clear blue to cloudy gray. Scientific analysis demonstrated that it contains two different blue pigments. Ultramarine delivers the brilliant azure visible on the left. This pigment was extremely stable but also very expensive, based on the mineral lapis lazuli, imported to Venice from present-day Afghanistan. Smalt, an extremely unstable pigment created from ground glass, changes color over time, resulting in a more muted hue. The dark, gray-brown at the right is a result of its decomposition. This area originally would have appeared grayish or silvery blue, appropriate to the wispy clouds.

Composition

Infrared images reveal Titian’s small compositional changes, which altered the story’s tenor. For example, he lowered the neckline of Europa’s dress. By exposing her right breast, the painter delivered an image of enhanced sensuality, appealing on the most basic, sexualized level to its owner Philip II.

Technique

A painting of people in a room with spinning machines.

Compare Cupid’s arrows to Europa’s hand. Titian approached this composition with two different painting techniques. He precisely described the arrows but only loosely suggested the hand, expecting the viewer to complete the illusion of it in their mind’s eye. This new, impressionistic approach transformed the art of painting, inspiring Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez, and many others who studied Titian’s work.

Fig. 1 Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640), after Titian, The Rape of Europa, 1628–29. Oil on canvas, 182.5 x 201.5 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. © Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado

Fig. 2 Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660), The Spinners, 1655–60. Oil on canvas, 220 x 289 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. © Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado

Restoring Europa

In preparation for this exhibition, Gardner Museum conservators, led by Gianfranco Pocobene, Chief Paintings and Research Conservator at the Gardner Museum, performed extensive work on Titian’s Europa.

Watch Now

Between 1551 and 1562, Titian delivered to Philip the six monumental paintings gathered in this room. Inspired by the words of the ancient Roman poet Ovid, the artist called them “poesie,” painted poems, eliciting a comparison between painting and poetry. Titian challenged the written word with the painted image. He compressed each mythological story into a single, climactic moment picturing the collision of gods and mortals and their cataclysmic consequences. Planned as pendant pairs, Titian’s paintings reveal the forces—power and lust, justice and cruelty, chance and fate—that underpin the foundations of world civilizations and legendary dynasties.

Painted cycles of mythological subjects were the prerogative of hereditary rulers, and Philip was one of the most powerful who had ever lived. He expanded the Habsburg Empire to four continents, stretching from Europe to Africa and from the Americas to Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. Philip claimed authority from God and descent from Mount Olympus. To most of his subjects, whom he would never meet, he himself was a kind of deity, seldom seen but ever present. Titian explores this complex identity in the poesie, enjoining the universal power of gods, the complex lives of sovereign rulers, and the helplessness of both at the hands of fate.
Renaissance artists never shied away from violent subjects, and Titian was no exception. His images of violence against women resonated differently in the sixteenth century than they do today. To consider these paintings is not to condone their violence but to try to understand what they mean to us now, and how we ourselves confront the persistent issue of sexual assault.

Titian dramatizes several stories of rape or coercion. The artist does not dwell on physical assaults but —like Ovid’s Metamorphoses—instead emphasizes their consequences, however disturbing that might seem today. Europa, abducted and raped by Jupiter, king of the gods, bore children on the island of Crete, who founded a civilization in her name. Jupiter seduced Danaë and Callisto, both of whom were punished—the former imprisoned by her family and the latter exposed by her peers. This approach underscores two aspects of sexual violence as it was understood in Titian’s time: the use of rape as a tool of warfare and conquest, and the legal standing of women in Renaissance society.

In this period, women’s rights barely existed, victims were rarely the primary focus of the legal system, and justice was framed in terms of family honor. Rape was a crime of lust carrying penalties for the loss of the woman’s family honor or the theft of property—since a married woman legally belonged to her husband. Often, judicial rulings required the victim to enter into a forced marriage with her assailant. It seems peculiar to us now that Titian painted these images for King Philip II to decorate his home, but rape was a subject of both eroticism and power that resonated with the ascendant monarch.

For contemporary audiences, the images raise disturbing questions. How do we reconcile the beauty of a painting with the horror of its subject? Have representations like these normalized scenes of violence throughout the history of Western art? Europa functions as a mute symbol, but what about her humanity? What is the relation between sexual violence or abduction, and power? Between violence and grief? We hope this exhibition, and the responses to it by Barbara Kruger and Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley, will be catalysts for ongoing dialogue.
Titian structured the drama of each story around gazes. Who sees whom, and what consequences does it carry for both? The goddess Venus foresees a brutal end for her lover Adonis but fails to keep him safe. The hunter Acteon sees his imminent demise as hunted prey in the bleached skull of a stag. Nymphs tear Callisto’s clothes off, revealing her pregnancy before Diana’s eyes and exposing her to the goddess’s wrath.

Titian painted the poesie for the enjoyment of Philip II but he was hardly the only person who saw them. What did Queen Mary Tudor make of the painting of Venus and Adonis, the mythological story of an older, more powerful woman’s attraction to a younger man? Might her courtiers have picked up on the relevance of its subject to their boss, who similarly outranked her husband?

Today we might see things differently. Each of us brings our own gaze to these artworks. Contemporary scholars and artists have shared their views in the audio stops for each painting.

What do you see and what does it mean to you?

The Six Poesie

Danaë

Venus and Adonis

Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Callisto

The Rape of Europa

Perseus and Andromeda

A portrait of Prince Phillip II of Spain.

Titian (Pieve di Cadore, about 1488–1576, Venice) and Workshop

Prince Philip II of Spain (Philip Habsburg, 1527–1598)

1549–50

Oil on canvas

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

At twenty-two years old, Philip prepares to inherit a global empire. With one hand on his sword, the prince signals his readiness to defend the Catholic faith across four continents. Titian idealizes the young man, filling the canvas with his figure and elongating his face. Philip was, in fact, “slight of stature and round-faced, with pale blue eyes, [and a] somewhat prominent lip . . .”

The painter made this portrait for Philip’s aunt, who sent it to his prospective bride, Queen Mary Tudor, advising her to view the painting in a good light and from a distance, like all of Titian’s work.

Antonius Mor (Utrecht, about 1514—about 1576, Antwerp) and Workshop

Queen Mary I of England (Mary Tudor, 1516–1558)

1554

Oil on oak panel

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Audio Description

Painted at the behest of Philip’s father to commemorate his son's engagement to Mary Tudor, this portrait depicts the queen in regal splendor. The magnificent, jeweled pendant around her neck —a wedding present from Philip—emblematizes the union. The painter deliberately bestowed on his subject a stern expression, not as an evocation of her later nickname “Bloody Mary,” but to avoid idealization. Mor’s pioneering, naturalistic approach to portraiture resists viewers’ eroticization of Mary’s body, forging a new ideal of female sovereignty.

Several months after the wedding, Titian sent Venus and Adonis to London. The mythological story of an older, more powerful woman’s attraction to a younger man likely was not lost on the royal couple. Yet their marriage was no love match. Mary forged this dynastic union largely to restore the primacy of Catholicism to England.

Explore the full exhibition

Titian: Women, Myth & Power

The lead sponsors of Titian: Women, Myth & Power are Amy and David Abrams and The Richard C. von Hess Foundation

The presenting corporate sponsor is:

This exhibition is supported by the Robert Lehman Foundation, Fredericka and Howard Stevenson, and an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Additional support is provided by an endowment grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Media Sponsor: The Boston Globe.