S. Rossi - Abstract

This essay illustrates for the first time Titian’s initial project for the Presentation of the Virgin in the temple, in the venetian Scuola della Carità. Scientific analyses and archive documents will reveal an extraordinary composition, more modern than the one actually painted, probably modified by the artist in order to satisfy the desires of the brotherhood, which was in competition with the other Venetian schools. We will enter into Titian’s atelier and will see the work in progress, discovering the re-use of its canvas support and the presence of numerous inedited figures and architectures hidden under the pictorial surface. Finally, the study of the painting’s genesis will bring us to the proposal of a new and anticipated conclusion date for the artwork, no later than 1537.