Titian and the image of women in 16th century Venice

Palazzo Reale, Milan opens 2022 with the great exhibition, supported by Bracco Foundation as Main Partner, dedicated to the image of women in the 16th century in the painting of the great maestro Titian and his famous contemporaries including Giorgione, Lotto, Palma il Vecchio, Veronese and Tintoretto, from February 23 to June 5, 2022.
About a hundred works on showincluding 47 paintings, 16 by Titian, many of them on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, plus sculptures, objects of art applied as jewels, a creation gifted by Roberto Capucci to Isabella d’Este (1994), books and graphics.

The exhibition, says curator Sylvia Ferino, aims to reflect on the dominant role of women in Venetian painting of the 16th century, which has no equal in the history of the Republic or other areas of European culture of the period.

The backbone of the exhibition tackles innate sections and eternally valid topic that is also completely new, presenting the female image through the broad spectrum of possible themes and at the same time comparing the individual artistic approaches between Titian and other painters of the time.

For Bracco Foundation is one of the priority focuses of commitment, hence the choice to support this important exhibition. With the same spirit in 2021 the Foundation contributed to the exhibition “Ladies of Art. Stories of women between 1500 and 1600”, an important exhibition that highlighted the talent of 34 female painters, often pioneers, from an era that did not favour the flowering of women. The promotion of female ingenuity in all fields is well represented by another continuing project of Bracco Foundation: “100 women against stereotypes donne contro gli stereotipi” (#100esperte), dedicated to female scientists, economists, philosophers, historians and detailed in a published form, in photographic exhibitions and events in Italy and abroad, with the aim of giving visibility to competences and bridging the gender gap.

For Titian, undisputed protagonist of his time, and thanks to him the artistic scenario of the time change completely, artistic beauty means female beauty: he was less interested in the canons of exterior beauty than in the personality of a woman and her femininity as such, he never diminishes their dignity, independently of the context, narration or portrayal.

An exhibition of the municipality of Milan culture, Palazzo Reale and Skira publishing in collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Curated by Sylvia Ferino

Main partner Fondazione Bracco

Official website