''The Death of Actaeon'' is a late work by the Italian Renaissance painter

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

, painted in oil on canvas from about 1559 to his death in 1576 and now in the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

in London. It is very probably one of the two paintings the artist stated he had started and hopes to finish (one of which he calls " Actaeon mauled by

hounds A hound is a type of dog that assists hunters by tracking or chasing the animal being hunted. Hound may also refer to: * Dog, any dog of the subfamily Caninae Arts and entertainment * ''Hounds'' (TV series), a 2012 television comedy series set ...

") in a letter to their commissioner Philip II of Spain during June 1559. However, most of Titian's work on this painting possibly dates to the late 1560s, but with touches from the 1570s. Titian seems never to have resolved it to his satisfaction, and the painting apparently remained in his studio until his death in 1576. There has been considerable debate as to whether it is finished or not, as with other very late Titians, such as the '' Flaying of Marsyas'', which unlike this has a signature, perhaps an indication of completion. Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels - Petworth House

Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels - Petworth House

It is a sequel of Titian's work '' Diana and Actaeon'' showing the story's tragic conclusion, which approximately follows the Roman poet

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

's account in the ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

'': after Actaeon surprised the goddess Diana bathing naked in the woods, she transformed him into a stag and he was attacked and killed by his own hounds."The Death of Actaeon"
''

''. London. Both paintings belong to a group of large-scale mythological paintings inspired by the ''Metamorphoses'' and referred to by Titian himself as ‘poesie’, the visual equivalent of poetry, which he began producing for Philip II of Spain in 1551 and which also include ''

Danaë In Greek mythology, Danaë (, ; ; , ) was an Argive princess and mother of the hero Perseus by Zeus. She was credited with founding the city of Ardea in Latium during the Bronze Age. Family Danae was the daughter and only child of King Acri ...

'' (many versions, the original, the first for Philip is in

Apsley House Apsley House is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing south towards the busy traffic roundabout in the centre of which stands the Wellington Arch. I ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, after

Joseph Bonaparte it, Giuseppe-Napoleone Buonaparte es, José Napoleón Bonaparte , house = Bonaparte , father = Carlo Buonaparte , mother = Letizia Ramolino , birth_date = 7 January 1768 , birth_place = Corte, Corsica, Republic of ...

took it away when he left

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. A later copy of Titian himself, perhaps the most sensual of all is in the

Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

), '' Venus and Adonis'' (original in the

, but also other versions), '' Perseus and Andromeda'' (

Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along ...

, London), '' The Rape of Europa'' (

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

), '' Diana and Actaeon'' and ''

Diana and Callisto ''Diana and Callisto'' is a painting completed between 1556 and 1559 by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. The paintin ...

'' (shared by

National Gallery of Scotland The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by W ...

with NG London). However, as ''The Death of Actaeon'' was never delivered to Philip, it is not always counted in the series.

Subject

Ovid's account does not include Diana herself pursuing Actaeon, or shooting at him, though in some other classical accounts she does chase him. She seems to have just loosed an arrow, but there is no sign of the arrow in the painting, nor is the bowstring visible. The goddess does not have her attribute of the small crescent in her hair that Titian's other two depictions in the ''poesie'' do, which troubled one early critic. There were ancient reliefs and

engraved gem An engraved gem, frequently referred to as an intaglio, is a small and usually semi-precious gemstone that has been carved, in the Western tradition normally with images or inscriptions only on one face. The engraving of gemstones was a major lux ...

s showing either Diana hunting with dogs, or Actaeon being attacked by his dogs, and a few Renaissance works, but the subject was rare, and "it may be that Titian had never seen another painting or other representation of the subject."

History

It was probably still in Titian's studio at his death in 1576, and presumably sold in Venice by his heirs. It probably belonged to the famous Venetian collection of

Bartolomeo della Nave Bartolomeo della Nave (? – 1636) was a Venetian merchant and art collector. Della Nave was born in Venice and acquired a large art collection, that later was spread to prominent collections. Many of the artworks in his collection are known from ...

, most of which was bought for

James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, KG, PC (19 June 1606 – 9 March 1649), known as The 3rd Marquess of Hamilton from March 1625 until April 1643, was a Scottish nobleman and influential political and military leader during the Thirty Year ...

(then still a Marquess) in 1636–38, one of the great collectors of the period in Britain. Hamilton's brother-in-law,

Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh (c. 160828 November 1675) was a diplomat, politician and parliamentarian army officer during the English Civil War. He was the eldest son of William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh and Susan Feilding, Countess o ...

(as he later became) was English ambassador to Venice, and helped to arrange the purchase. A list of available paintings he sent Hamilton includes "A Diana shooting Adonis in forme of a Hart not quite finished" by Titian. Hamilton, who was a Royalist commander in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

, was captured and executed in 1649 after losing the Battle of Preston to

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

. This, like most of his collection, was bought by

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (5 January 1614 – 20 November 1662), younger brother of Emperor Ferdinand III, was an Austrian soldier, administrator and patron of the arts. He held a number of military commands, with limited success, an ...

, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1647 to 1656. The painting appears (looking rather lighter in tone than today) in David Teniers the Younger's painting of the '' Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm'' (1651, now Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels), as well as his different versions of the subject now in

Petworth House Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Sa ...

and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The archduke seems to have given it to Queen

Christina of Sweden Christina ( sv, Kristina, 18 December ( New Style) 1626 – 19 April 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden in her own right from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustavus Adolphus upon his death ...

, whose route into exile went through the

Spanish Netherlands Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the H ...

, before she settled in Rome. It does not appear in an inventory of her collection made in Antwerp in 1656, but is in one made in Rome in 1662 or 1663. After her death it eventually passed, with much of her collection, into the

Orleans Collection The Orleans Collection was a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723. Apart from the great royal-become-national collections of Euro ...

in Paris in 1721. Like most of the collection, it was bought by a consortium in London after the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, and then sold in 1798 to

Sir Abraham Hume, 2nd Baronet Sir Abraham Hume, 2nd Baronet (29 February 1749 – 24 March 1838, in London) was a British floriculturist and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1774 and 1818. Life and Politics He was born the eldest son of Sir Abraha ...

for the modest sum of 200 guineas, the price no doubt reflecting that it was considered by Hume and others as unfinished. Hume described it as "a great painting never finished but quite beautiful". Hume was the author of the first monograph on Titian, published in 1829, and "was especially appreciative of preliminary sketches by Venetian artists (or what he believed to be such)." His collection passed by descent to

Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow Adelbert Wellington Brownlow-Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (19 August 1844 – 17 March 1921), was a British soldier, courtier and Conservative politician. Background and education Brownlow was the second son of John Egerton, Viscount Alford, eldest ...

, who was made a Trustee of the National Gallery in 1897. By 1914 Brownlow needed to raise some cash, and offered the gallery this painting for £5,000 and a portrait by Anthony van Dyck for £10,000, writing "I only ask from the Gallery what I consider to be a very low price because I am anxious to see them in the gallery". The van Dyck was bought but the Titian declined, because of the opposition of another trustee, Alfred de Rothschild, who declared that the Titian "would not fetch £5 at Christie's". Other trustees may have been in favour but the "difficult character" of Rothschild, who was hoped to be planning a bequest to the gallery, might have resigned if the purchase was made. In 1919 the painting was bought via the dealers Colnaghi's for £60,000 by

Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood (9 September 1882 – 24 May 1947) was a British soldier and peer. He was the husband of Mary, Princess Royal, and thus a son-in-law of George V and Queen Mary and a brother-in-law to Edward ...

(then Viscount Lascelles), giving "the measure of Rothschild's expertise and of Brownlow's generosity". In 1971, when the painting had already been on loan to the National Gallery for ten years, the trustees of the 7th Earl sold the painting at Christie's for £1,680,000. It was bought by the dealer Julius Weitzner and swiftly resold to the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fea ...

in Malibu for £1,763,000. At this point an export licence was needed, and the

Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) is a committee of the United Kingdom government, advising the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the export of cultural property. Some of it ...

suspended granting one for one year to allow a British buyer to match this price. The public campaign in 1971 to buy it for the United Kingdom was one of the great successes of Martin Davies's directorship of the

, despite Davies's own lukewarm enthusiasm for the painting. It was eventually purchased in 1972 (as catalogue number NG6420) with £1,000,000 from the gallery's funds and a special Treasury grant matching other donations pound for pound; these included £100,000 from the Art Fund and £50,000 from the

Pilgrim Trust The Pilgrim Trust is a national grant-making trust in the United Kingdom. It is based in London and is a registered charity under English law. It was founded in 1930 with a two million pound grant by Edward Harkness, an American philanthropist. T ...

, the rest raised by a public appeal, then a great innovation.Penny, 255

''Poesie'' mythological series

* ''

'', delivered to Philip in 1553, now Wellington Collection, with earlier and later versions. * ''Venus and Adonis'', Museo del Prado, delivered 1554, and several other versions * '' Perseus and Andromeda'',

, c. 1554–56 * ''Diana and Actaeon'', 1556–59, owned jointly by London's

and the

in Edinburgh * ''

'', 1556–59, owned jointly by London's

and the

in Edinburgh * '' The Rape of Europa'', c. 1560–62,

* ''The Death of Actaeon'',

, never delivered, and often not counted in the series, c. 1559 onwards File:Tizian - Danae receiving the Golden Rain - Prado.jpg, ''

'' File:Venus and Adonis by Titian.jpg, '' Venus and Adonis'' File:Perseo y Andrómeda, por Tiziano.jpg, '' Perseus and Andromeda'' File:Titian - Diana and Actaeon - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Diana and Actaeon'' File:TitianDianaCallistoEdinburgh.jpg, ''

'' File:Tizian 085.jpg, ''The Rape of Europa'' File:Titian - The Death of Actaeon - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Death of Actaeon''

Notes

References

*Jaffé, David (ed), ''Titian'', The National Gallery Company/Yale, London 2003, (no. 37, catalogue entry by

Nicholas Penny Sir Nicholas Beaver Penny (born 21 December 1949) is a British art historian. From 2008 to 2015 he was director of the National Gallery in London. Early life Penny was educated at Shrewsbury School before he studied English at St Catharine ...

) * Penny, Nicholas, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): ''The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II, Venice 1540-1600'', pp. 248–259, 2008, National Gallery Publications Ltd,

External links

''The Death of Actaeon''
with x-ray views
"Titian’s ‘poesie’ paintings"
National Gallery videos
Essay on this painting from the book ''Beauty and Terror'' by Brian A. Oard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Death of Actaeon, The 1559 paintings 1575 paintings Paintings by Titian in the National Gallery, London Deer in art Dogs in paintings by Titian Paintings about death Paintings depicting Greek myths Paintings based on Metamorphoses Paintings in the collection of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Water in art Unfinished paintings Paintings formerly in the Orleans Collection Mythological paintings by Titian