Attributed to Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian

In this replica of Titian's celebrated Self-Portrait today in Berlin (Gemaldegalerie, inv. no. 163), the Venetian artist is shown with a long white beard. Wearing a cap befitting a contemporary intellectual, Titian depicts himself not as a painter, but as a learned man of letters. The Berlin image was already popular in Titian's day and there exist numerous versions, of which this is of especially high quality. Interestingly, in the present work the artist is depicted with blue, rather than brown eyes. Titian executed his first self-portrait only in 1545, before leaving Venice for Rome, but he was adept at using visual imagery to craft his artistic identity.