Allegory of married life, oil painting on canvas. This is a small copy of Titian's work of the same name, created around 1532 and today preserved in the Louvre Museum. Originally it was thought that the work portrayed Alfonso d'Avalos, marquis of Vasto, bidding farewell to his wife before going to fight the Turks. Instead, it is more likely a prototype of a matrimonial allegory that enjoyed widespread success in Venice. The spouses are represented in the guise of Mars (in armour) and Venus, and are accompanied by Cupid, protector deity of love, who holds a bundle of arrows, by Vesta, goddess of the domestic hearth, crowned with myrtle, symbol of marital fidelity , and by Hymenaeus, divinity of weddings who offers a basket of fruit and flowers. The woman holds a crystal ball, as if she wanted to peer into the future. The melancholic expressions of the protagonists have been read as a reference to the possible death or departure of one of the two spouses. The painting is presented in a contemporary frame.
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PLATINUM Seller in Milano, Italy
