The Christ of the Pitti Gallery—a bust-figure of the Saviour, relieved against a level far-stretching landscape of the most solemn beauty—must date a good many years after the Cristo della Moneta. In both works the beauty of the hand is especially remarkable. The head of the Pitti Christ in its present state might not conclusively proclaim its origin; but the pathetic and intensely significant landscape is one of Titian's loveliest.
Last seen in public at the Old Masters' Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1895.
An ingenious suggestion was made, when the Ariosto was last publicly exhibited, that it might be that Portrait of a Gentleman of the House of Barbarigo which, according to Vasari, Titian painted with wonderful skill at the age of eighteen. The broad, masterly technique of the Cobham Hall picture in no way accords, however, with Vasari's description, and marks a degree of accomplishment such as no boy of eighteen, not even Titian, could have attained. And then Vasari's "giubbone di raso inargentato" is not the superbly luminous steel-grey sleeve of this Ariosto, but surely a vest of satin embroidered with silver. The late form of signature, "Titianus F.," on the stone balustrade, which is one of the most Giorgionesque elements of the portrait, is disquieting, and most probably a later addition. It seems likely that the balustrade bore originally only the "V" repeated, which curiously enough occurs also on the similar balustrade of the beautiful Portrait of a young Venetian, by Giorgione, first cited as such by Morelli, and now in the Berlin Gallery, into which it passed from the collection of its discoverer, Dr. J.P. Richter. The signature "Ticianus" occurs, as a rule, on pictures belonging to the latter half of the first period. The works in the earlier half of this first period do not appear to have been signed, the "Titiano F." of the Baffo inscription being admittedly of later date. Thus that the Cristo della Moneta bears the "Ticianus F." on the collar of the Pharisee's shirt is an additional argument in favour of maintaining its date as originally given by Vasari (1514), instead of putting it back to 1508 or thereabouts. Among a good many other paintings with this last signature may be mentioned the Jeune Homme au Gant and Vierge au Lapin of the Louvre; the Madonna with St. Anthony Abbot of the Uffizi; the Bacchus and Ariadne, the Assunta, the St. Sebastian of Brescia (dated 1522). The Virgin and Child with St. Catherine of the National Gallery, and the Christ with the Pilgrims at Emmaus of the Louvre—neither of them early works—are signed "Tician." The usual signature of the later time is "Titianus F.," among the first works to show it being the Ancona altar-piece and the great Madonna di San Niccolò now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican. It has been incorrectly stated that the late St. Jerome of the Brera bears the earlier signature, "Ticianus F." This is not the case. The signature is most distinctly "Titianus," though in a somewhat unusual character.