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Venus of Urbino
Titian · Renaissance & Mannerism
- Artist
- Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1488–1576)
- Date
- 1534–1538
- Dimensions
- 119 x 165 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Titian’s Venus of Urbino shows a nude young woman reclining on a bed and looking directly at the viewer, a small dog asleep at her feet. It was bought by Guidobaldo della Rovere, the future Duke of Urbino, around 1538.
A closer look
Unlike Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus, which Titian knew well, this Venus is awake, indoors and fully aware of us. In the background two maids search through a chest for her clothes, placing the goddess in a contemporary Venetian palace. The red roses in her hand and the myrtle on the windowsill are symbols of love and marriage, and the sleeping dog of fidelity, which has led many to see the painting as an image of marital love rather than mythology.
History of the painting
The painting stayed with the dukes of Urbino until 1631, when the last of the della Rovere line died and his granddaughter Vittoria brought the family's art to Florence as part of her dowry on marrying Ferdinando II de' Medici. It has belonged to the Florentine collections ever since and hangs in the Uffizi. Its frank sensuality divided later visitors: Mark Twain, in A Tramp Abroad (1880), called it the most obscene picture in the world, while Manet answered it with his Olympia.
