Leseprobe

12 that would only be carried by freshly-wed women and others decided that the pearl necklace must have been part of her dowry. In addition, the white dress was identified as a bridal gown; however, this is not undisputed when one considers that a bride was ex- pected to wear her hair loose. 22 Hans Posse, a gallery director, was the first to re- ject identifying the woman by name: “Formerly, erro- neously described as Titian’s daughter Lavinia”. 23 As a consequence, he retitled the painting: “Portrait of a Lady in White”. 24 However, this anonymisation was not to be the final word in the history of the picture’s attribution. Recently, attention has been drawn to the interpretation as a courtesan. The catalog of Titian’s oeuvre also reconsiders the identification with Lav- inia – albeit with a question mark. 25 In this case, ref- erence was once again made to the portrait of Lavinia that appears to verify the portrayed woman with an inscription (Ill. 3). Although it is uncertain whether the inscription is original, traces of aging indicate that the letters were at least added at an earlier stage in the history of the painting. This would indicate that – even if the inscription is not autographical – it does pass on earlier historical knowledge. 26 Facts about the “Lady in White” Titian was married twice. 27 He had two sons, Pom- ponio and Orazio, with his first wife Cecilia. They were born out of wedlock but were legitimized with their parents’ marriage in November 1525. Cecilia passed away only a few years later in 1530. Seeing that Lav- inia did not marry until 1555, it would mean that she would have had to have been at least 25 years old if she sprang from Titian’s marriage to Cecilia. There is no mention of a daughter in the preserved documents on this union and marrying in one’s mid-twenties was a very unusual affair in those days – especially, when a large dowry of 1400 ducats was involved. This indi- cates that Lavinia was born during Titian’s second marriage. In keeping with the date of the wedding with Cor- nelio Sarcinella (1555), a wealthy member of the lower nobility from Serravalle, that has been passed on to us, Cornelia must have been born sometime between 1535 and 1540. The date of her death is un- known. The last available record that was created during her lifetime dates from the beginning of 1573. She is documented as being dead in 1577; it possible that – like her father, Titian – she perished during the year of the plague1576. The portrait by Titian in the Old Master Gallery in Dresden mentioned above is generally considered to be of his daughter Lavinia (Ill. 3). It probably shows her as she looked in the mid-1560s. 28 Her strong fa- cial features, round head and sturdy body, as well as the horizontal shoulder area, show no similarity to the “Lady in White”. The differences could definitely not only be due to the fact that Lavinia is said to have given birth to five or six children between the two portrait sittings. 29 Even Hadeln had rejected any kind of similitude between the two persons. 30 This means that we must assume that the woman dressed in white depicts a considerably younger woman than Lavinia. Charles Hope proposed the fascinating thesis that the young woman in the “Lady in White” is not Lav- inia but another one of Titian’s daughters. 31 Her name was Emilia and she married the grain dealer Andrea Dossena in 1568. Her dowry was only 750 ducats – barely half the amount Titian had given to Lavinia. This would indicate that she was of illegiti- mate birth. The fact that Lavinia’s husband attempted to claim the artist’s total inheritance after the death of his wife and Titian’s two sons in 1577 implies that Emilia had been born out of wedlock. We have very little information on her life. It seems that she was born in the early 1550s; there is proof that she had three children and died in 1582. However, she is much more present visually – if one accepts the iden- tification as founded. There are several paintings in Titian’s oeuvre for which she seems to have stood model. For example, the previously mentioned alle- gorical depiction of the “Maiden with the Bowl of Fruit”, which is in Berlin today, shows a similarly slen- der, blond type of woman with long facial features, clearly cut eyes and a pointed nose (ill. 1). This paint- ing goes beyond the borders of portraiture if one in- terprets the woman with her precious clothing as Pomona, the Roman goddess of spring. Titian had the same model, with the same gesture, appear as “Sa- lome” in a painting that is located in Madrid today – however, this time not shown in a concrete space but in front of a diffuse dark background and, in this case, holding the large embossed platter with the head of John the Baptist in it up in her hands . 32 However, there is no documented evidence for the identification of Emilia as the model in the paintings in Dresden, Berlin and Madrid. We also know of no authenticated portrait of this daughter of Titian’s. Nevertheless, in keeping with the time, the state- ments made by the artist in his letters that the woman Ill. 3 Titian “Portrait of Lavinia” c. 1565, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister