''Isabella in Red'' (also called ''Portrait of the Aged Isabella d'Este'') is a portrait of a woman by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque traditio ...

in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

in Vienna. It is considered a close copy of a lost

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

original.

Description

The knee-piece shows a somewhat chubby middle-aged woman in a red velvet dress in front of a turquoise background. On her head she wears a balzo, a fashionable invention of Isabella d'Este (from 1509), which was widely used in northern Italy in the 1530s. Personal features are reddish-brown curls, brown eyes and classically arched eyebrows.

History

At the beginning of the 17th century, Rubens was a court painter in

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

. During this time (and later in other places) he copied Italian painters, including Titian. These are considered close copies. The date of the Rubens copy remains unclear (1600, c. 1605 or later), and so does the date of Titian's original (depending on the source, the years 1524-1536 are assumed). After Rubens' death, two copies from his hand of two Titian portraits depicting Isabella d'Este are mentioned in his inventory. The Rubens painting ''Isabella in Red'' later transferred from the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Independently, since chronologically before, other copies of the lost Titian original exist, in particular: * A copy from Titian's workshop (very similar but with a more youthful representation of the subject) is documented by a photograph (provenances Léopold Goldschmidt and Contesse Vogué in Paris) * An anonymous 16th-century copy (breastpiece representing the same age) shows the inscription "Isabella Estensis" and is now in the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Identity of the sitter

As identifications of Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), three coloured portraits are exhibited in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The personal characteristics are contradictory (see graphic on the right): * ''Ambras Miniature'' (anonymous Mantuan artist in the 16th century), * ''Isabella in Red'' (copy by Rubens c. 1605 after a lost original by Titian) and * ''

Isabella in Black ''Isabella in Black'' (also called ''Portrait of Isabella d'Este'') is a portrait of a young woman by Titian. It can be dated to the 1530s and is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The artist and the date are undisputed. Beyond the museu ...

'' (Titian 1530s). Due to the resulting confusion, all other museums have withdrawn colour identifications. The differences cannot be explained by idealisation, as ''Isabella in Black'' was commissioned as a "face-lift" of the over-60s and would be unflattering (e.g. eye colour, stub nose and eyebrows). Potential explanation would be a misidentification either in ''Isabella in Black'' or coincident confusions in ''Isabella in Red'' and the ''Ambras Miniature''. The contradictions start in the inventory after Ruben's death in Antwerp with the simultaneous naming of ''Isabella in Red'' and ''Isabella in Black''. The inventory is four generations later, in 1640, and thus included namings are not reliable. Portrayals with Balzo were often referred to as the famous patron of the arts after Isabella d'Este's death. The two older copies of the lost Titian original (including an inscription "Isabella Estensis" independent of Rubens) speak for the correct identification in the model of ''Isabella in Red''. The ''Ambras Miniature'' also shows homogeneous features with ''Isabella in Red'', bears also an inscription ''Isabella Estensis'' and, as a Mantuan copy about a generation later, should still represent a relatively contemporary identification. The confusion would then have to be (as published by some experts) in ''Isabella in Black''.Valcanover, 1969, p. 108 as work no. 174.

Literature

* Francesco Valcanover: ''L‘ opera completa di Tiziano''. Rizzoli, Milan 1969, p. 108 as work no. 173 (Italian). * Sylvia Ferino-Pagden: ''La Prima Donna del Mondo - Isabella d'Este''. Exhibition catalogue Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Vienna 1994, pp. 114–117 (German). * Jeremy Wood: ''Rubens Copies and Derivations from Renaissance Masters, Italian Artists, Titian and North Italian Artists'', vol. 1, Harvey Miller Publishers, London 2009, pp. 248–249.

References

External links