PARIS, FRANCE.- The Senate presents today Titian, The Power of Portaits at the Musée du Luxembourg, on view through January 21, 2007. The Senate presents an exceptional exhibition of the works of Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), the greatest portraitist of the Renaissance, at the Musée du Luxembourg. With over 60 works originating from 14 countries including an extraordinary gathering of 35 portraits by Titian, this exhibition reunites paintings of some of the most powerful men of his time such as the Emperor Charles V, Philip II and Francis I, along with portraits of doges, popes and cardinals. To immortalize themselves, they chose Titian, acknowledged as the greatest of living painters, the painter of power. Their magnificent portraits are on view alongside comparative works produced by other major artists, such as Rubens, Lorenzo Lotto, Parmigianino, Tintoretto, Benvenuto Cellini, Giulio Romano and Paris Bordone.

The exhibition focuses first and foremost on the inexhaustible theme of the portrait as treated by Titian and seeks to discover the reasons behind his brilliant and lasting success that made him a key player on the 16th century art scene in Italy and in Europe. The Venetian master, animated by extraordinary ambition and determination, very quickly placed his talent at the service of the great figures of his day, continually winning new, influential patrons and eventually gaining access to the very citadels of power: a handful of powerful men who between them decided the fate of Europe and the world.

The exhibition will enable to follow the different stages in the brilliant ascension of Titian who within a few years -- after obtaining the most prestigious and official awards of the Republic of Venice and with the help of his well-connected friend Pietro Aretino -- gained the esteem of the great Italian princes. The members of the Este, Gonzaga, Della Rovere and Farnese families commissioned Titian to paint superb portraits celebrating their official ranks and social stature, though the master never abandoned his irrepressible inclination towards naturalism: all his portraits reveal the human side, the intimate personality and sensibility of his subjects.

Titian arrived at the very summit of his career when the Emperor Charles V, who had appointed him official portraitist, raised him to the position of first painter to the Habsburg court. The emperor's son, Philip II, continued to patronize the Venetian artist during his years of maturity. In parallel to this official production, Titian also enjoyed -- as one can note in the evolution of his artistic language -- to capture the "movements of the soul" of his subjects, carefully noting their attitudes and sensations and plunging into the heart of their most intimate emotions. He represented thus his friends and members of his family, as well as writers, humanists and poets, all belonging to the effervescent Venetian cultural scene of which he was one the key protagonist; indeed his studio in the Biri Grande attracted a steady stream of visitors. This category of paintings includes the highly detailed, very life-like portraits of Aretino, Pietro Bembo and Anselmi, to mention only the most well-known. Alongside portraits of famous people, Titian also painted a great many portraits of aristocratic figures and unknowns, often defined by a particular attribute through which the painter draws the attention of onlookers and involves them in the scene. Another happy expedient frequently adopted by Titian was to show his model in the heat of action so as to capture a secret expression, an intimate reaction or an inner movement of the psyche.

As an intelligent and eclectic observer of a time that he himself lived through and embodied to a surprising degree, Titian further broadened the scope of his interests to include another social strata -- no less influential than the aristocracy -- that is the wealthy burghers of the towns. Although their finest interpreter was undoubtedly Lorenzo Lotto, he was certainly not the only one as the exhibition reveal. Lastly, the exhibition naturally dedicates a section to the captivating female universe of Titian, a theme that he loved and depicted with the greatest enthusiasm. This is beautifully illustrated in the fascinating portraits of Laura Dianti (private collection) of a young girl (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples) or in the delicate portrait of the little Clarice Strozzi (Staatliche Museen, Berlin). The depiction of Judith (Detroit Institute of Art) is a particularly interesting profane and sensual vision of the biblical heroine.

Titian’s skilled sense of portraiture thus offers an extraordinary historical visual testimony on some of the most illustrious -- but also of the lesser known – protagonists of a brilliant, long gone era, here brought back to life through their expressive looks and spellbinding faces. These representations of power, knowledge and seduction painted by Titian and some of his prestigious contemporaries are presented at the Musée du Luxembourg thanks to the work of exhibition curator Nicola Spinosa, Soprintendente per il Polo Museale Napoletano, and to the very fruitful cooperation between the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris and the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, which recently held a sister exhibition entitled Tiziano e il ritratto di corte da Raffaello ai Carracci. We would also like to salute the painstaking scientific preparation of both these exhibitions which benefited from the collaboration of experts from Italian and foreign institutions: a solid organisation carried out by experts in Paris, London, Rome and Naples, working together like a miniature European Community.

Exhibition Curators: Nicola Spinosa, Superintendent of the Naples Museums; Tullia Carratù, scientific adviser for exhibitions, Superintendent's' Office, Rome; Morena Costantini, scientific adviser for exhibitions, Superintendent's Office, Rome; Jennifer Fletcher, member of the scholarly committee for the Musée du Luxembourg; Project Director: Patrizia Nitti, Director of Renaissance Projects, Musée du Luxembourg. Assistant: Carolina Vincenti.