Discovery of Titian's Lost Fragment / Tiziano Vecellio
When it was first examined, the painting—which later turned out to be one of the most important art finds of the twenty-first century—appeared to be an unsigned landscape. Its surface was covered with airborne pollutants, such as dust, grime, and cigarette smoke. Stylistically, it appeared to date from the first half of the 20th century and did not seem to have been painted by a highly skilled artist. The ultraviolet light examination revealed no evidence of either earlier or more recent alterations or inpainting. The canvas on which it was executed was relined onto a second, supporting canvas and stretched over an expandable stretcher.
1. Landscape with Lake. Oil by an unknown painter
At that point, a restorer removed the dirt from the surface of the painting (see illustration 1). As this procedure was carried out, ridges in the paint that were inconsistent with the landscape design became noticeable. This indicated the possibility of an older image underneath. The practice of painting a new image on top of an existing one is quite common and has always been done for reasons of economy. Some artists (including the 18th‑century English painter Thomas Gainsborough, among many others) reused their own canvases; others, who could not afford a new canvas (such as Amedeo Modigliani and other painters of the Modernist school), purchased inexpensive paintings in second‑hand stores and painted over them. It was therefore necessary to try to glean some information about the image covered by the landscape. X‑raying confirmed the presence of the hidden painting; although it was unclear what the image truly depicted, it appeared to contain numerous feet and shoes (see illustration 2).
2. X‑radiograph of the painting's right side
It was possible to observe, through layers of paint, that the canvas was of a very distinctive type—a diagonal (twill) weave. This type of support was favored by Venetian painters of the late Renaissance and Baroque periods; it was less susceptible to buckling in the humid atmosphere of a Venetian lagoon that surrounds the city than the regularly woven canvas. It has become clear that the landscape was hiding a painting of considerable age, though its significance remained unknown.
3. Solubility Tests
The landscape's paint, when tested, dissolved quite readily. Small test areas revealed an older paint layer in remarkably good condition (see illustration 3). A question arose: Could the hidden image possess historic, artistic, or monetary value greater than that of the existing landscape? The only way to find out involved removing the landscape by dissolving and carefully scraping off its paint—thereby destroying it forever. Would that be ethical? Would the value of a "newly" exposed painting be higher than that of the landscape? After protracted research into these and related matters, and consultations with art historians and legal experts, a decision was reached to sacrifice the landscape in order to uncover the unknown image below.
4. Feet and shoes
When this lengthy process was painstakingly concluded, it revealed an unusual picture: one bare foot and several other feet in shoes of various styles beneath the hemlines of long robes (see illustration 4). What would be the purpose of painting such an unappealing subject in the first place? Was the canvas intended to serve as the marquee for a shoemaker’s shop? We can visualize what an old cobbler shop sign might look like: shoes of various designs would very likely be placed on it prominently and spaced regularly, unlike in our painting, where the shoes are shown from different angles and arranged haphazardly. Another possibility is that this painting was a fragment of a larger canvas.
All depicted shoes, except one pair, display a type of footwear typical of what affluent people wore during the late Renaissance. Common people wore clumsy leather shoes—or sometimes no shoes at all—while the wealthy and well-to-do members of the middle class wore light slippers made of silk, satin, or soft kid leather, often featuring patterns that matched their outfits. Some of the depicted shoes are of that type; however, one pair does not conform to the European fashion of the period.
What is also unusual about this pair is how prominently it is shown. While the other shoes are nearly concealed by floor-length garments and dresses, as the period’s fashion dictated, the robe of the wearer ends high above the ground, exposing what appear to be cumbersome boots designed for a cold climate rather than for the mild weather of Venice. It is impossible to tell what material the boots are made of; they could be embroidered silk, multicolored felt, or painted leather. Their shape and coloring are certainly out of place for Venetian shoes of the late Renaissance. They are in a style we associate with boots from the Far East—specifically those from China, Mongolia, and Tibet (see illustration 5).
How could Tibetan boots have found their way into a Venetian painting of the 16th century? Both the manner in which the owner proudly displayed them—shortening his robes so they could be noticed and admired—and the artist’s detailed rendering suggest their high value. Venice, as we know, was the first Western European medieval city to establish a vital commercial link with the Far East, facilitated by the trading ventures of Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle. It is possible that among the exotic items they brought home from their travels was a pair of Tibetan boots. Everything they described following their decades-long journeys was so outlandish that many accused them of lying; everything they brought to Venice was so exotic that it was treasured for hundreds of years and passed from one generation to another—at least until the late sixteenth century, when our picture was likely painted.
5. A young local woman wearing a Tibetan costume and boots. Lhasa, Tibet, 2014
No matter how unusual this fragment—a painting of exotic boots and other common shoes—might be, without knowing the larger work from which it came or who painted it, it remains a mere curiosity.
Fortunately, I recall seeing a large mural with two pieces of canvas removed from its lower edge during my last visit to Venice in 1990, for the exhibition commemorating the 500th anniversary of Titian’s birth. The painting (see illustration 6), located in the Gallerie dell'Accademia, was created by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, 1488/90–1576), one of the greatest painters in the history of art, between 1534 and 1538.
6. Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple
Though the subject, the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, is biblical, the artist treated it as a scene from contemporary life. As the setting for this imaginary event, he chose a small Venetian piazza in front of a church, with a staircase leading up to its open door. The Virgin Mary, as a girl, ascends the stairs toward a figure of Moses dressed as a Hebrew high priest. There are allegorical figures at the foot of the stairs, all wearing "biblical" flowing garments. The rest of the people assembled in the piazza, as well as onlookers in the windows of an adjacent building, are dressed in 16th‑century garbs. One can easily discern which figures serve purely iconographic or compositional purposes—such as an egg seller in the foreground and soldiers with a halberd in the background—and which are significant personages of the day. The latter are men dressed in black robes with small, round caps, senior members of the Scuola della Carità confraternity.
Originally, when Titian received a commission to paint the enormous (133 x 310 in., 339 x 790 cm) canvas for the hall of the Scuola (founded in 1260), there was only one doorway leading to an adjacent room that he had to take into consideration—the one on the right side. Knowing this, he incorporated its shape into his design and painted around it a rectangular, rusticated opening, flanked on one side by an ancient Roman marble torso and on the other by an egg peddler’s basket. The door on the left, leading to a small room, was cut in 1572, requiring that a part of the large canvas be sacrificed (notes 1 and 2).
What happened to that piece of canvas is only conjecture: whoever took possession of it had it relined onto a second canvas—a common restoration procedure. (In 1750, the newly founded Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, a precursor to today's Gallerie, moved to the Scuola's building; it opened its art restoration department there in 1777.) This allowed it to be properly framed and displayed. One has to remember that even as a fragment, this unprepossessing image came from the brush of Titian. During his lifetime, he was called "The Sun amidst small stars" because he so outshone other artists. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V—Titian's client and admirer—conferred on him the Order of the Golden Spur in 1533 as a sign of the high esteem in which he held the artist (see illustration 7).
7. Titian: Self-Portrait
Over time, knowledge of the fragment's authorship must have been lost, until eventually it was regarded merely as a piece of old canvas that was later painted over with a landscape by an unknown painter.
Although this fragment may not, at first sight, suggest the significance it deserves, its art‑historical importance cannot be overstated:
-It completes one of Titian's most important paintings.
-It contextualizes the appreciation of items that Marco Polo brought back to Venice—three hundred years after his sojourn to China.
-Its measurements and design fit the left cut‑out in Titian's painting perfectly; the pained expression of the boots’ owner attests to how uncomfortable it must have been to wear these relics.
It is truly remarkable that the fragment has survived through the centuries. Efforts are now underway to reunite it with the mural so that the "Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple" can be viewed in its original, unaltered form.
Notes:
1. Giovanna Scire Nepi: Treasures of the Venetian Art / The Gallerie dell'Accademia. The Vendome Press, New York 1991, p. 150.
2. In his 1898 book The Later Works of Titian, Sir Claude Phillips erroneously wrote that the painting was originally executed without two cut‑outs; he believed it was later moved to another location and, upon its return, the pieces were cut out to accommodate two new doors.
Illustrations and List of Artworks:
1. Landscape with a Lake, oil by an unknown artist.
2. X‑radiograph of a painting's right side.
3. Tests of the solubility of the landscape's paint.
4. Feet and Shoes. Oil on canvas.
5. A young local woman wearing a Tibetan costume and boots, photographed by the author in Lhasa, Tibet in 2014.
6. Titian: Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. Oil on canvas. Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice.
7. Titian's Self‑Portrait with the Order of the Golden Spur. Hand‑painted replica by an unknown artist. Second half of the nineteenth century. Oil on canvas, laid to panel. Private collection, USA.
© Andre Lohnert 2017. All rights reserved.
Slovak synopsis/Slovenské resumé
Olejomaľba "Pohľad na krajinu s jazerom" od neznámeho maliara zo začiatku dvadsiateho storočia zakrývala fragment nástenného obrazu, namaľovaného Tizianom Vecelliom, ktorý sa nachádza v zbierke Gallerie dell Accademia v Benátkach. Objavenie tohoto dávno strateného a zabudnutého fragmentu je jedným z najdôležitejších umelecko-historických objavov našich čias. V týchto dňoch (2017) prebieha jednanie o spojení fragmentu s nástenným plátnom, aby Tizianove veľdielo mohlo byť opäť obdivované vo svojom pôvodnom nezmenenom stave.
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