Research Seminar – Investigating Titian: The First Forty Years (2013)

Jill Dunkerton, acclaimed Restorer in the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, London gave a Department of History of Art research seminar in York on 21 February 2013 entitled 'Investigating Titian: The First Forty Years'.  Ms Dunkerton is the author of many ground-breaking publications on the techniques of Italian Renaissance artists, and in this seminar she presented some of the discoveries made during recent technical examination of the National Gallery’s celebrated group of works by Titian from the first half of his career, up to about 1540.

Paintings discussed included Bacchus and Ariadne and the great early portraits, including the Portrait of a Man with a Blue Sleeve, recently identified as Gerolamo Barberigo, and Portrait of a Lady ‘La Schiavona’. In addition, the project included works from outside the National Gallery collection, including Titian’s earliest large canvas, The Flight into Egypt from the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, as well as The Triumph of Love from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the latest of Titian’s paintings included in the study.

Titian’s painting technique was illustrated with X-ray and infrared images, as well as paint cross-sections and details from the paintings themselves.

Titian, Portrait of a Lady ('La Schiavona') (c.1510-12) oil on canvas; National Gallery, London (http://bit.ly/2oUnGYz)

Titian, Portrait of Gerolamo (?) Barbarigo (c.1510), oil on canvas; National Gallery, London (http://bit.ly/2twhqMr)

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-3), oil on canvas; National Gallery, London (http://bit.ly/2fMzR4C)