Titian, 'Noli me Tangere', about 1514

Noli me Tangere

Titian

Not on display

About the work

Overview

Risen from the dead, Christ appears to his grieving follower, Mary Magdalene, in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first she mistakes him for a gardener but then reaches out her hand in wonder. Christ says, ‘Do not touch me’ (in Latin, noli me tangere); it is time for his followers to let go of his earthly presence and await the Holy Ghost (John 20: 14–18).

This is one of the earliest works by Titian in the National Gallery’s collection. Its high-key colours and the way the figures are set in a natural landscape echo the style of Giorgione, with whom Titian trained. The lines of the tree and the hillside draw attention to the look between the figures. Titian has suggested Christ’s gauzy loincloth and Mary Magdalene’s scarf with dragged brushstrokes of lead white that catch the texture of the painting’s canvas.

In-depth

This is one of the earliest works by Titian in the National Gallery’s collection. Its high-key colours and the way the figures are set in a natural landscape echo the style of Giorgione, with whom Titian trained. Titian had already succeeded in uniting figures with the landscape five years earlier in The Holy Family with a Shepherd, but here he has done something more subtle and sophisticated – the hills, trees and shrubs play a part in the drama. The intersecting lines of the tree and the hillside draw attention to the line of eye contact between the figures. This was an approach that Titian was to develop further in his great altarpiece The Death of Peter Martyr, completed in 1530 (for SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, but now destroyed), where the trees contribute dynamically to the action.

The figure of Christ is in a graceful and entirely believable sinuous, twisting pose which reveals Titian’s increasing understanding in this period of the nude and its dynamic potential. This must partly have been due to his study of prints of and drawings after works by Raphael and Michelangelo, who each in their way made the articulation of the nude figure and the study of antique sculpture central to their practice.

The group of buildings on the right appears in reverse in Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love (Borghese Gallery, Rome), which is dated fairly securely to about 1514, as well as in his Sleeping Venus (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) of around the same time. The rendering of Noli me Tangere, however, is particularly evocative in its observation of the tumbling mists and play of light across the fields as dawn breaks. We also see the expressive brushwork and interest in the textural possibilities of paint that became the hallmark of Titian’s mature and late styles. The whites of Mary Magdalene’s veil, of Christ’s flowing burial shroud and his loincloth are subtly differentiated, each rendered with dragged brushstrokes of lead white that catch the texture of the painting’s canvas.

Noli me Tangere probably also dates to about 1514. X-ray images reveal that Titian made numerous changes to the landscape during painting but he never seems to have shown the empty tomb or Calvary – the hill on which Christ was crucified – included by almost all other artists painting this subject.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Noli me Tangere
Artist: Titian
Artist dates: active about 1506; died 1576
Date made: about 1514
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 110.5 × 91.9 cm
Acquisition credit: Bequeathed by Samuel Rogers, 1856
Inventory number: NG270
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 20th-century Replica Frame

Provenance

Stated in the Recueil d’Estampes d’après les Plus Beaux Tableaux ... en France, 1742 (vol. II, p. 59) that no. 270—which is engraved in that work—had been in the collection of Christoforo and Francesco Muselli at Verona, that it had been acquired by the Marquis de Seignelay (who died in 1690) who had sent agents to Italy to buy it, that it had then belonged to ‘M. Bertin’ and that at the time of writing it was in the Orléans collection. It is therefore identifiable with Ridolfi’s mention (1648) of Titian’s Maddalena con Christo nell’ horto (as belonging to Christoforo and Francesco Muselli) and with a picture catalogued in the Muselli collection in 1662, despite the fact that in the latter the Magdalen is said to have one hand on her bosom. Pierre-Vincent Bertin, the owner after Seignelay, died in 1711. Catalogued on page 477 of Du Bois de Saint Gelais’ Description des Tableaux du Palais Royal (1727). The Italian pictures in the Orléans collection were sold in 1792 to the Belgian banker, Walkuers, who sold them to Laborde de Méréville, who fled with them to England where they were bought by Jeremiah Harman who made them over to a syndicate consisting of the Duke of Bridgewater and Lords Carlisle and Gower. A sale was arranged by Bryan who exhibited them in 1798. No. 270 seems to have been lot 119 in the sale at 88 Pall Mall, 26th December, 1798, which in an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the National Gallery library is marked as bought by Lord Gower. A few of the pictures bought on this occasion by the latter and by the Duke of Bedford reappeared in an anonymous sale (by Coxe, Burrell and Foster), 12th–13th May, 1802. In this sale no. 270 was lot 55 (2nd day). Lot 91 (‘from the Orléans Gallery’) Arthur Champernowne sale, 2nd day, 30th June, 1820, where bought Rogers. Samuel Rogers bequest, 1856.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1987; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2012

Titian's First Masterpiece: The Flight Into Egypt

The National Gallery (London)

4 April 2012 - 19 August 2012
2019

Titian and the Renaissance in Venice

Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie

13 February 2019 - 26 May 2019
2020

Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London

The National Museum of Western Art

18 June 2020 - 18 October 2020

The National Museum of Art

3 November 2020 - 31 January 2021
2021

Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London

National Gallery of Australia

5 March 2021 - 14 June 2021

Bibliography

1749

A.-N. Dézallier d'Argenville, Voyage pittoresque de Paris, ou, Indication de tout ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans cette grande ville, en peinture, sculpture, & architecture, Paris 1749
1833

J.D. Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien, Frankfurt am Main 1833
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1877

J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, Titian: His Life and Times, London 1877
1903

O. Fischel, Tizian: Des Meisters Gemälde, Berlin 1903
1906

H.F. Cook, 'Notes on the Study of Titian', The Burlington Magazine, X/44, 1906, pp. 102-8
1934

G.M. Richter, 'Unfinished Pictures by Giorgione', Art Bulletin, XVI/3, 1934, pp. 272-90
1934

G.M. Richter, 'The Problem of the "Noli me Tangere"', The Burlington Magazine, LXV/376, 1934, pp. 4-16
1958

C. Gould, 'A Famous Titian Restored', The Burlington Magazine, C/659, 1958, pp. 44-50
1959

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Venetian School, London 1959
1969

H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian: The Religious Paintings, 3 vols, London 1969
1975

C. Gould, Delaroche and Gautier: Gautier's Views on the 'Execution of Lady Jane Grey' and on other Compositions by Delaroche, London 1975
1978

R. Pallucchini, Tiziano e il Manierismo europeo, Florence 1978
1980

C. Hope, Titian, London 1980
1984

D. Sutton, 'Aspects of British Collecting, III.XIII: The Orléans Collection', Apollo, CXIX/267, 1984, pp. 357-72
1985

J. Dundas, 'A Titian Enigma', Artibus et historiae, VI/12, 1985, pp. 39-55
1987

Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, London 1987
1988

S.M. Newton, The Dress of the Venetians, 1495-1525, Aldershot 1988
1992

P.P. Fehl, Decorum and Wit: The Poetry of Venetian Painting: Essays in the History of the Classical Tradition, Vienna 1992
1993

A. Steinberg, 'Blurred Boundaries, Opulent Nature, and Sensuous Flesh: Changing Technological Styles in Venetian Painting, 1480-1520', Studies in the History of Art, XLV, 1993, pp. 198-220
1993

M. Laclotte (ed.), Le siècle de Titien: L'âge d'or de la peinture à Venise (exh. cat. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 9 March - 14 June 1993), Paris 1993
1994

A. Schnapper, Curieux du Grand Siècle: Collections et collectionneurs dans la France du XVIIe siècl, Paris 1994
1995

E. Guidoni, Studi su Giorgione e sulla pittura del suo tempo: Conferenze 1995-96, 5 vols, Rome 1995
1995

M.G. Bernardini, Tiziano: Amor sacro e amor profano (exh. cat. Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome), 22 March - 22 May 1995), Rome 1995
1997

R. Goffen, Titian's Women, New Haven 1997
1999

J. Drury, Painting the Word: Christian Pictures and Their Meanings, New Haven 1999
2000

G. Finaldi, The Image of Christ, London 2000
2000

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, ed. D. Barrie, revised edn, London 2000
2000

O. Garnett, 'The Letters and Collection of William Graham: Pre-Raphaelite Patron and Pre-Raphael Collector', The Walpole Society, LXII, 2000, pp. 145-343
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2001

E. Gass, Der auferstandene Christus: Bilder zur Auferstehung Jesu, zur Himmelfahrt und zu Pfingste, Tübingen 2001
2001

P. Joannides, Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius, New Haven 2001
2001

F. Pedrocco, Titian: The Complete Paintings, London 2001
2002

D. Bomford et al., Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 30 October 2002 - 16 February 2003), London 2002
2003

D. Jaffé (ed.), Titian, London 2003
2003

J. Dunkerton and M. Spring, 'The Technique and Materials of Titian's Early Paintings in the National Gallery, London', Restoration, III/1, 2003, pp. 9-22
2003

C. Hope et al., Titian (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 19 February - 18 May 2003; Museo Nacional del Prado, 10 June - 7 September 2003), London 2003
2005

D.A. Brown, 'Titian and Bellini: From Pupil to Rival', Arte Cristiana, XCIII/831, 2005, pp. 425-42
2006

L. Fuccia, 'Pour "la satisfaction tant attendue " et "les desirs passionnes" du marquis de Seignelay. Une correspondance inedite sur le voyage d'Alvarez en Italie', Revue de l'art, 152, 2006, pp. 37-52
2006

D.A. Brown et al., Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 18 June - 17 September 2006; Kunsthistorisches Museum, 17 October 2006 - 7 January 2007), New Haven 2006
2007

W. Eller, Giorgione: Catalogue Raisonné: Mystery Unveiled, Petersberg 2007
2007

B. Baert, '"Noli me Tangere" or the Untouchable Body. Five Exercises in the Prohibition of Touching', Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen, 2007, pp. 8-21
2008

L.M. Rafanelli, 'Sense and Sensibilities: A Feminist Reading of Titian's "Noli me Tangere"', Critica d'arte, LXX/8, 2008, pp. 28-47

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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