Titian’s greatest mythological works to be reunited in London
Move made possible by Wallace Collection’s decision to lend works for the first time
A series of Titian’s greatest mythological paintings will be brought together for the first time in 400 years at the National Gallery in London next March.
The show has been made possible by the inclusion of Titian’s “Perseus and Andromeda” — one of the six large-scale works in the cycle now scattered across the globe — which is the first work of art ever loaned out by the Wallace Collection.
The National Gallery’s temporary show will bring together paintings now held by galleries in the London, Edinburgh, Boston and Madrid. Borrowing the final piece from the Wallace Collection had been out of the question under the gallery’s old rules — set by its bequest to the nation in 1897 — which stated that the collection should “be kept together unmixed with other objects of art”.
In September, however, the Wallace Collection announced it had decided to scrap this longstanding stipulation after agreeing the reform with the Charity Commission and the government, which directly provides part of its annual funding.
Inspired by the classical figures in the Roman poet Ovid’s epic poem “Metamorphoses” and regarded by Titian as his visual equivalent of poetry, the so-called “poesie” represent one of the artistic high points of the late Italian Renaissance.
Commissioned by Philip II of Spain, Titian painted the series between 1551 and 1562. He intended the six paintings to hang together, but when he was working on them the Spanish palaces were being redecorated. Royal inventories made no mention of them until the following century, when they were hanging in the king’s summer apartment in the Alcázar castle in Madrid. Some of the paintings then passed into French hands in the 17th century and were sold off in the aftermath of the French revolution.
For its part, the Wallace Collection will benefit from a reciprocal deal with the National Gallery in which two landscape masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, held in his private collection and intended to be displayed together, will be reunited for the first time in 200 years. Separated in the early 19th century, “A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning” from the National Gallery collection and the Wallace’s “Rainbow Landscape” will be shown at the Wallace Collection from May to September 2020.
Announcing the swap deal on Monday, Xavier Bray, director of the Wallace Collection, said: “This is an unprecedented moment in art history, made possible by the Wallace Collection’s decision to lend works for the first time.” Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery, said: “The beneficiary is the general public.”
Curators around the world are likely to be eyeing other possibilities opened up by the Wallace Collection’s pivotal reform.
Based at Hertford House in Manchester Square, its collection was amassed over the course of a century by four generations of the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. After the death of Sir Richard, his widow Lady Wallace bequeathed the collection and Hertford House to the nation.
It contains internationally renowned works such as “The Laughing Cavalier” by Frans Hals, “The Lady with a Fan” by Diego Velázquez and treasures from French painters of the 18th century including Boucher, Fragonard and Watteau.