Venus of Urbino

Titian's 'Venus of Urbino' (1538), commissioned by Duke Guidobaldo II della Rovere, is the defining image of Renaissance sensuality. It transposes Giorgione's 'Sleeping Venus' into a contemporary bedroom, where a wide-awake woman meets the viewer's gaze, her right hand modestly yet suggestively placed; the roses at her feet, the little dog, and the cassoni (marriage chests) handled by maids in the background cast the painting as a complex meditation on marriage, fidelity, and desire. Édouard Manet's 'Olympia' would reinterpret the composition three centuries later as a scandalous modern provocation.

Exhibition Venue

Galleria degli Uffizi

Florence, Italy