Hidden for centuries, portrait discovered under Titian masterpiece

The Manila Times

Hidden for centuries, portrait discovered under Titian masterpiece  Researchers in Cyprus have discovered a hidden portrait that lay undetected for centuries beneath a 1570 oil painting by Renaissance master Titian, a rendering of which is now on display in the city of Limassol.   The newly discovered work shows an unidentified man with a thin moustache, quill in hand, standing next to a stack of papers or books — a prosaic image compared to the scene of Jesus Christ, bound and wearing a crown of thorns, that Titian later painted over it.  The painting "holds a secret, and the secret is that there is, unknown until now, a painting underneath," said Professor Nikolas Bakirtzis, who leads a team at the Cyprus Institute (CyI), a non-profit educational body.  REUTERS VIDEO  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe   Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net   Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion   Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital   Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein  #TheManilaTimes #worldnews  #renaissance

Transcript

00:00What is unique about this particular painting is that it holds a secret, and the secret

00:14is that there is an unknown, until now, painting underneath the Egeomo, and the discovery and

00:23mapping of this underpainting has helped us to understand a lot more than what we knew

00:31until this day about the reuse of canvases and the reuse of paintings in Renaissance

00:39studios, in particular Titian's studio.

00:43It was even almost as if we were conducting an archaeological excavation on this painting

00:48because we approached it from the surface up, and we started looking into the layers

00:54of its stratigraphy, using a range of imaging methods, and then at the same time, physical,

01:02chemical, analytical methods that allowed us to look under the surface.

01:08It was like uncovering a puzzle.

01:11We said, okay, maybe this is a part of something, and then the artist changed his mind, but

01:16then once we started realizing that there is a complete work underneath, we became extremely

01:23excited, happy, and intrigued also.

01:27The portrait that is underneath this painting is the portrait of a standing man.

01:34We have not been able, we did our research, but we have not been able to identify who

01:41this man is.

01:42He is not one of the known patrons, for example, or friends or clients of Titian.

01:49He is standing.

01:50He is a professional man.

01:52The setting is an interior setting, an office setting.

01:55He is standing in front of a desk.

01:58One hand touches a book or a stack of papers, and then the other hand he is holding a quill.

02:06So this is clearly the portrait of a banker, a lawyer, some professional man in his workspace.

02:20He didn't like it.

02:22He didn't pay for it.

02:24He left town.

02:25Who knows?

02:26Titian is somebody who was reusing his canvases.

02:30There have been other paintings discovered or partially painted works under some of his

02:36other canvases, but I'm not aware of any case where we can safely map the direct painting

02:45of a composition over an earlier one.

03:00I'm not aware of any case where we can safely map the direct painting of a composition over

03:07an earlier one.

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