* Pietro della Vecchia Venice or Vicenza 1602/3 - 1678 Venice

Earl of Ashburnham, Ashburnham Place, Sussex, before 1877 to 1931;
Frank T. Sabin, London, 1931;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, July 20, 1956, lot 51, for £262 to Oscar Klein
With Central Picture Galleries, New York, by whom sold to
Marc and Lillian Roijtman

London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1902, no. 86

G.M. Richter, "Two Titian Self-Portraits", in The Burlington Magazine, 1931, vol. 58, pp. 161-8 (as Titian, circa 1550);
APC (Art Prices Current), vol. XXXIII, London 1955-56, no. 4414;
B. Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, London 1957, vol. I, p. 183, reproduced vol. II, plate 1008 (as Titian, circa 1560);
H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian. II. The Portraits, London 1971, p. 180, cat. no. X-94 (as a 17th-century copy after Titian);
F. Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington 1979, p. 519 (as a 17th-century copy after Titian);
B. Aikema, Pietro della Vecchia and the heritage of the Renaissance in Venice, Florence 1990, pp. 28, 143, cat. no. 174 (as Pietro della Vecchia, circa 1650)

This would appear to be the picture formerly in the collection of the Earl of Ashburnham, Ashburnham Place, Sussex, where it was long considered to have been a self-portrait by Titian.  Published as such by Berenson, it was subsequently doubted by scholars in the field (see Wethey and Rusk Shapley under Literature below).  Aikema was the first to publish the picture as by Pietro della Vecchia and he considers it an autograph variant of Della Vecchia's Portrait of Titian in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (reproduced in Wethey, op. cit., pp. 179-80, cat. no. X-93, plate 273, and more recently in Aikema, see Literature, pp. 142-3, cat. no. 173, reproduced fig. 57).  Giovanni Britto's print of 1550 (London, British Museum; reproduced in Wethey, ibid., plate 208) may have served Della Vecchia as a source for both paintings, though it has also been hypothesised that they reflect an original painting by Titian (now lost). A painting believed to be by Titian, showing the artist drawing with a statue of Venus beyond, is described in a letter of 1675 from Marco Boschini to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici though it is by no means certain that the attribution to Titian was correct.