''Portrait of Pope Paul III'' (or ''Portrait of Pope Paul III Without Cap'') is a 1543

oil-on-canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

portrait by

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), ...

Pope Paul III Pope Paul III ( la, Paulus III; it, Paolo III; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death in November 1549. He came to ...

, produced during the pope's visit to Northern Italy.Portrait of Pope Paul III Without Cap
Google Arts and Culture. Retrieved 31 March 2022 It is in the collection of the

Capodimonte Museum Museo di Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand House of Bourbon, Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with several important works ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, southern

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Background

The work was completed by Titian during a meeting with Paul III in

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

, in April 1543 during a period of tension and political uncertainty leading up to the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento, Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italian Peninsula, Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation ...

.Bondanella (1996), p. 86 The pope is depicted with unflinching realism and an old, tired and distrustful man, but who nevertheless has an intelligent and sharp expression. The painting is a reinterpretation of

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...

's ''

Portrait of Pope Julius II ''Portrait of Pope Julius II'' is an oil painting of 1511–1512 by the Italian High Renaissance painter Raphael. The portrait of Pope Julius II was unusual for its time and would carry a long influence on papal portraiture. From early in its life ...

''. Characteristic of Titian's late style, it consists of broad brushstroke and loose definition in the form. The artist produced a slightly later variant two years later, also preserved in Naples, which shows Paul III wearing a

camauro A camauro (from the Latin ''camelaucum'' and from the Greek ''kamelauchion'', meaning "camel skin hat") is a cap traditionally worn by the Pope of the Catholic Church. Papal camauros are made from red wool or velvet with white ermine trim, and ...

. The portrait of was inherited by Isabella of Farnese, mother of Charles of Bourbon, who took it to Naples in 1734 to be exhibited in the palace of Capodimonte, where it remains today. There are several replicas of the same painting. One of them, preserved in the

cathedral of Toledo , native_name_lang = , image = Toledo Cathedral, from Plaza del Ayuntamiento.jpg , imagesize = 300px , imagelink = , imagealt = , landscape = , caption ...

, was traditionally attributed to Titian, who would have made it two years after the original. However, this attribution has been rejected by some authors, who have identified it as a later replica, possibly made by

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy. The seventh c ...

Notes

Sources

* Bondanella, Julia. ''The Life of Titian''. Penn State University Press, 1996. * Donatz, Andrea.
Titian and the Portrait of Paul III
. Academia.edu, 2015 * Zapperi, Roberto. "Alessandro Farnese, Giovanni della Casa and Titian's Danae in Naples". ''Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes'', Volume 54, 1991 {{Titian

Paul III Pope Paul III ( la, Paulus III; it, Paolo III; 29 February 1468 – 10 November 1549), born Alessandro Farnese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 13 October 1534 to his death in November 1549. He came to ...

1545 paintings Portraits of popes Paintings in the collection of the Museo di Capodimonte