Tiziano Vecellio

(Pieve di Cadore - Venezia, 1576)

Circle of

Oil on canvas

cm. 94,5x187. Framed

This luminous Last Supper, characterized by squillant colors and remarkable compositional balance, takes as its main stylistic model the works of Titian Vecellio executed in the third and fourth decades of the 16th century. Its major term of reference can be set in the Supper at Emmaus executed within 1535 for Count Jacopo Maffei of Verona (now in Paris, Musée du Louvre) and replicated shortly thereafter, with minor variations, for the Contarini family of Venice (now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, formerly coll. Duke of Yarborough). As an autonomous production reality, Titian's circle still constitutes a phenomenon to be fully elucidated, despite valuable recent focus. Our painting shows a mastery and maturity of style that in fact appear compatible with very few of the names to which it is usual to attribute works of strong Titian influence but of arduous attribution, not least because of an articulate pictorial culture that looks profitably, in addition to Titian, to Bonifacio de' Pitati and Paris Bordon. By way of hypothesis, one can suggest for this intriguing work the name of Polidoro da Lanciano, at a chronological height around 1540-'45, because of affinities with works such as the Berlin Gemäldegalerie's The Washing of the Feet and the Christ and the Adulteress in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.