Titian's daughter, Lavinia and other things

This photo is of Titian's daughter, Lavinia, who was his model for many of his pictures. It is but a headshot of a half-figure portrait. I saw it in Napoli at the Capodimonte Museum many years ago. I was staying on Capri in a funky old hotel in the unglamorous port side of the island. I used to take the ferry across to Napoli to visit this incredible museum. 

This photo, which I took of this portrait, I've had ever since and is currently affixed to an IKEA cabinet in the kitchen. Before that it lived in a Filofax agenda that I carried around for years before the arrival of the i-phone.

This portrait stops me in my tracks sometimes between tasks while preparing dinner. In fact, she has never been far from me. Butt she's not the only one. I have various other small 'crushes' scattered about my home. Marguerite Matisse is another one. Her father also used her as a model often but always as his daughter.

Titian painted Lavinia in various roles and many poses in so many different pictures. Though it's not officially noted I'm sure that the famous Venus of Urbino is Lavinia. But there are many others to spread out in grand museums all over the world. 

Upon walking into a palatial room at the top of the museum, the bay of Naples spread out through the large windows,  I saw her and was smitten immediately. It's complicated to explain because I loved her for the way she looked, but I also loved her for the way he painted her. Full disclosure: I have also fallen in love with other women simply by seeing their portraits. Goya made at least one, but there are others too. What does it mean to fall in love with a painted portrait? Is that so crazy? I mean, people today fall in love with photographs of their objects of desire, non? 

Another one was Titian's St Margaret, in the Prado, and may have also been one of Lavinia's  modelling jobs. I saw this large picture during my first year in France when I visited Madrid at the beginning of my studies in art. To be really honest, I had such a visceral sensation upon seeing this giant portrait that I was disturbed for weeks afterward. It was not by the picture nor the talents of Titian, but from my erotic attraction to the model in the painting. Whether or not it was Lavinia doesn't matter, though it might have been. I was just overwelmed by the emotion in her face and her voluptuously imposing body, because at 21, I was quite impressed by certain kinds of women, either painted or in the flesh. Indeed, it was considered at the time a risqué picture for Titian revealed her long naked leg which would have driven those priests mad. 

St Margaret, Titian, The Prado museum

According to legend, St Margaret of Antioch (4th century Turkey) was expelled from home by her pagan father priest when she was converted to Christianity by a local midwife. She then vowed to be virgin but her beauty was such that she bewitched a local Roman Governor whose advances she had spurned. He had her imprisoned and tortured, but while in prison she met the devil who took the form of a dragon. He then tried to eat her but the cross she held in her hand so irritated the dragon that he disgorged her. She  survived subsequent attempts by fire and drowning until she was finally beheaded. 

Being the Middle Ages, of course, there were spectators for each assassination attempt and the more she survived the bigger the crowds. She ended up converting thousands to Christianity after witnessing her ordeal, but alas, they too were put to death. She became a saint one thousand years later, hmmm. What is it with all these Men who want to hurt women, then years later venerate them? 

But anyway, she became a great fixation for me and I not only fell for her but for Titian too.

One anecdote about Titian I really love, because the Renaissance was not only time of greatness (for some) but a wonderful time to be a painter, (great or crappy). Like today, where families are held in high regard if there is a lawyer or or accountant in their brood, during the 15th and 16th centuries, a family would equally be celebrated for having a painter or two in their midst. Painters were revered everywhere in Italy. 

So the story goes that when Titian was painting Pope Paul III, he dropped a paint brush during the session and then waited for the Pope to get off his chair and bend over to pick it up for him. How times have changed.

      Pope Paul III, Titian, 1543, Capodimonte Museum, Napoli