A Tale of Two Portraits: Titian's Seated Portraits of Philip II.

This paper explores the relationship between two seated portraits of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), one an oil sketch and one apparently the finished portrait derived from the sketch. Thus far, the two portraits have been attributed to Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1488–1576). However, an analysis of each painting's style, chronology, and provenance challenges the nature of the paintings' relationship to one another and defies the attribution of the finished portrait to Titian. Franz von Lenbach (1836–1904), one of the leading portraitists in nineteenth-century Germany and a superior copyist of Old Master paintings, particularly those by Titian, instead emerges as the pivotal figure uniting the paintings and is here proposed as the author of the finished portrait. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]