The work attributed to Titian hangs between two different work of Saint Sebastian within the gallery of Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.

Armando Colls

cover caption

toggle caption

Armando Colls

The work attributed to Titian hangs between two different work of Saint Sebastian within the gallery of Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami.

Armando Colls

MIAMI — Among artwork fans, the Italian Renaissance painter Titian holds a particular standing.

An immensely successful 16^th century artist, he launched new strategies of utilizing shade which influenced later painters. Titian had a long career and lots of of his work survive. Still, the invention of a brand new Titian is an occasion. A piece lately decided to be painted by him is part of an exhibition in Miami.

It’s not at a museum however at a highschool, one which has its personal historical past. Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was based in Havana within the nineteenth century. It moved to Miami in 1961 after the Cuban revolution. The personal boys-only college has a dedication to arts training and has its personal gallery.

But artwork historical past trainer Sylvie Daubar-San Juan says the varsity by no means earlier than had an exhibition as prestigious as this—one which encompasses three inventive eras—the medieval, the Renaissance and the baroque.

“We’re super lucky,” she says. “Particularly you know, the caliber of a lot of the artists and the fact that it shows these three different styles.”

Art historian Paul Joannides believes the repositioning of Saint Sebastian’s head and the portray of the loincloth may solely have been performed by Titian.

Frascione Arte

cover caption

toggle caption

Frascione Arte

Miami has turn out to be a global artwork vacation spot, because of the annual Art Basel fair and a few essential personal museums that target up to date artwork. But the exhibition at Belen is one thing Miami has not often seen earlier than—”old masters”—European work, together with works by Rubens, Tintoretto and the one newly attributed to Titian.

They’re all from the gathering of Federico Gandolfi Vannini, a fourth-generation artwork seller from Florence, now residing in Miami. “My great-grandfather was…one of the first art dealers in Italy,” he says.

Vannini got here to Miami along with his American spouse and 4 youngsters through the pandemic and determined to remain. His sons enrolled on the personal highschool. A dialog with the varsity’s president led to this exhibition.

There are 30 items within the present together with one from the 13^th century. It is, Vannini says, “one of the oldest pieces of modern art that has ever come to South Florida.” It’s a picket cross, with a portray of Jesus and a quartet of saints, the work of an unknown artist from Italy’s Umbrian-Marches area.

Three work of Saint Sebastian, clad solely in a loin fabric and pierced by arrows, are the centerpiece of the exhibition. Until Vannini had it restored, one was attributed solely to an unknown artist. But when an previous coat of varnish that obscured the picture was eliminated, a high-quality portray emerged and there have been clues that it may have been performed by Titian.

Standing in entrance of the six-foot-tall canvas, Vannini factors out what artwork historians name “pentimenti,” corrections made by the artist which might be seen on shut inspection. He says, “I saw for example that the face of Saint Sebastian was…higher, that it was looking up.”

X-ray photographs verify that the artist experimented with the saint wanting up, earlier than repainting the top to face downward. On the decrease left part of the portray, Vannini factors out one other space the place a correction was made. “You can see,” he says, “the painting was all moved a little bit on this side.”

Another clue is a fraction of canvas used as a patch on the portray that carries the letters “A-N”—maybe a part of the artist’s signature.

Details in an x-ray picture of the portray reveals that Saint Sebastian’s head seems to have initially appeared upward.

Frascione Arte

cover caption

toggle caption

Frascione Arte

The picture of Saint Sebastian depicted within the portray is well-known. It seems in a big altarpiece signed by the artist that’s now within the Vatican museum. Vannini suspects that his portray was presumably a research for that bigger work.

Vannini despatched it to London the place it may very well be evaluated by one of many foremost Titian students. Paul Joannides, professor emeritus at Cambridge University advised NPR that this portray is at the least partially, the work of Titian.

In his analysis, Joannides says he believes the repositioning of Saint Sebastian’s head, as revealed by X-rays, may solely have been performed by Titian himself. In an essay, he says he additionally turned satisfied by the standard of the portray. “To my eye,” he writes, “the loin cloth, which is vigorously and securely executed is likely to be by Titian’s own hand.” Other elements of the portray, notably the saint’s physique and legs, Joannides writes, may have been performed by different artists in Titian’s workshop.

Maria H. Loh is a professor of artwork historical past on the Institute for Advanced Study who has written two books on Titian. She declined to touch upon the authenticity of the portray. She says as a result of Titian had a big workshop that produced many variations of the artist’s work, attributing work to him may be tough. “It is sometimes difficult to know whether it is an authentic painting painted by the hand of the master or if it is a painting that has been replicated and duplicated and is coming out of the workshop.”

Vannini says that is why the artist’s seen corrections to the portray are so essential. “It means that it’s not a copy of the one of the Vatican,” he says. If it was an identical to the well-known determine within the altarpiece now within the Vatican museum, Vannini says, “it could be just a copy done by his workshop, some of his followers, that just, someone was paying to have a copy.”

Attributing artwork to previous masters like Titian could be a fraught and contentious course of, partially as a result of it could actually inflate in a single day the worth of portray from the 1000’s properly into the hundreds of thousands.

Vannini says he has no plans to promote the portray. His household has had it for 60 years, although he says he would at some point prefer to see it go to a museum. The exhibition shall be up by mid-December. Vannini hopes different Titian students will have a look and kind their very own opinions on its authenticity.