Art on the line NEWS – The Age of Titian in Edinburgh The Age of Titian: Venetian Renaissance Art opinion of Professor Peter Humfrey, of the from Scottish Collections is a major exhibi- University of St Andrews and guest curator of tion planned for the National Gallery of the exhbition, will nicely complement those in Scotland in Edinburgh from 4 August to 5 Edinburgh. Another little-known work from a December 2004. It will bring together the Scottish public collection is Bonifacio’s Sacra National Gallery’s own group of Venetian Conversazione in the McManus Art Gallery Cinquecento pictures, loaned to it since 1945 in Dundee. by the Dukes of Sutherland, and Edinburgh’s “The exhibition will also draw on a num- other Venetian pictures (including important ber of Scottish private collections. Despite works by Cariani, Jacopo Bassano, Moroni the sales and dispersals of the later nine- and Veronese – and even perhaps by teenth and twentieth centuries, Scotland Giorgione) plus those in Scotland’s other remains rich in collections such as those of principal public art gallery, that of Glasgow the Marquess of Bute or the Earl of Wemyss, (Kelvingrove and Burrell Collection). formed by Scottish noblemen in the Regency Some of the former Sutherland pictures, and Victorian periods,” said Professor including Tintoretto’s Entombment and Humfrey. “Some of these collections are very Lotto’s Virgin and Child with Saints, and now little known, and among the works that have also Titian’s Venus Anadyomene (figure 1), been promised to the exhibition are have in the meantime been acquired by the Savoldo’s Shepherd and Romanino’s National Gallery. Others, including Titian’s Nativity, both belonging to Lord Wemyss; Three Ages of Man and the two great Diana Moretto’s King David with a Devotee, last pictures painted for Philip II of Spain, remain seen at the Moretto exhibition in Brescia; and on loan from the Sutherland collection. Christ Jacometto’s Portrait of Alvise Contarini, and the Adulteress, the most famous belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch.” Venetian picture in Glasgow and now usual- These pictures, although rarely seen, have ly accepted as an early work by Titian, has been published and are known to scholars, not previously been seen together with the but the exhibition will also include some spec- Sutherland Titians. tacular works never previously published. The Glasgow loan will also comprise a These include a three-quarter-length portrait number of other important works by such by Lorenzo Lotto; a huge Christ and the painters as Giovanni Bellini (including the Centurion by Paris Bordon; Andrea Burrell Madonna), Catena, Paris Bordon, Schiavone’s largest known mythology, an Tintoretto and Paolo Fiammingo, that in the Infancy of Jupiter; and a state Portrait of Doge ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (8) 1 ART ON THE LINE Cima’s St Jerome and Catena’s Portrait of a Young Man, both formerly at Hamilton Palace; Lotto’s Lady as Lucretia, likewise once in the Southesk collection and Titian’s Allegory of Prudence, which in the nineteenth century belonged to the Earls of Aberdeen.” The National Gallery of Art in Washington has similarly agreed to lend Veronese’s late masterpiece, The Martyrdom and Last Communion of St Lucy, formerly in the collection of Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, and Titian’s Vincenzo Cappello, formerly at Hamilton Palace. “The exhibition Figure 1 Titian, Venus Rising from the Sea (Venus Anadyomene), 1520–25, oil on canvas, 74 x 56.2 promises to offer an cm, Duke of Sutherland Collection, recently acquired by The National Gallery of Scotland. © The National Galleries of Scotland impressive panora- ma of the great age of Venetian painting, Marcantonio Memmo by Palma il Giovane. from Giovanni Bellini to Palma il Giovane “The majority of works in the exhibition with virtually all the major protagonists repre- belong to existing Scottish public and private sented, often with works of outstanding qual- collections, the opportunity will be taken to ity. But on another level, the exhibition will borrow a number of pictures formerly in represent a significant contribution to the his- Scottish ownership, but which have now emi- tory of British collecting in the eighteenth and grated south of the border to England or nineteenth centuries, especially by drawing abroad,” explained Professor Humfrey. attention to important but long dispersed “These include Giovanni’s Bellini’s early St Scottish collections such as those of the Jerome from Birmingham, in the Southesk Dukes of Hamilton at Hamilton Palace, of the collection until the 1940s, and four important Barons Kinnaird at Rossie Priory and of the works from the National Gallery, London: Stirlings of Keir,” said Professor Humfrey. 2 ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (8) NEWS: THE AGE OF TITIAN IN EDINBURGH There will be about 80 paintings in the exhi- The exhibition will be held in the recently bition and they will be joined by about 40 draw- restored and refurbished surroundings of the ings, all from the National Gallery of Scotland neo-Greek Doric temple of the Royal (and including the portrait studies by Lotto and Scottish Academy on Princes Street, built in Palma il Vecchio), and about 20 prints, drawn the early 1820s by William Playfair. By the from both Edinburgh and the Hunterian time the Age of Titian opens, the Academy Museum in Glasgow (including engravings by building will be connected to the neighbour- Caraglio and Cort after Titian, and Guilio ing National Gallery building by a new under- Sanuto’s rare Apollo and Marsyas). In addition ground link offering a whole range of new there will be a number of Venetian medals, visitor facilities, including a restaurant, a lec- plaquettes and sculptures (including Mosca’s ture theatre and an expanded shop, with Mucius Scaevola, and a recently acquired bust views over Princes Street Gardens. of Cleopatra by Simone Bianco) on show. ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (8) 3.