Catalogue entry
Titian
c.
1490–1576
NG 224
The Tribute Money
2008
,Extracted from:
Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II: Venice 1540–1600 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2008).

© The National Gallery, London
c. 1560–8 (perhaps begun in the 1540s)
Oil on canvas, 112.2 × 103.2 cm
Signed: TITIANVS / .F.
Support
The measurements given above are those of the stretcher. The original canvas is a tabby weave of medium weight, with 16 threads to the centimetre in the warp and 15 in the weft. This has been paste‐lined on to a canvas of a similar weave. Some of the original canvas, including the tacking holes, has been turned over the stretcher, together with the lining canvas, at the upper edge. Strips of canvas were added to the sides and lower edge of the original canvas at an early date. These strips are of a different type, also of tabby weave but with fewer threads to the centimetre (approximately 12 in the warp and 13 in the weft). The status of these additions is not clear, but during the lining that took place in 1937 the strip at the lower edge was treated as a later addition and most of it was turned over the stretcher. The seam is now two centimetres above the lower edge in the lower left corner and slopes down to the right. The strips at the sides remain as they were before the lining of 1937, with seams between 2 cm and 1 cm from the right edge and between 3 cm and 1 cm from the left.
The added strips were prepared with a chalk (calcium carbonate) ground, an unusual preparation which can be found in at least one other sixteenth‐century Venetian painting in the National Gallery (see p. 396). The chalk contains some black pigment. No samples have been taken that would reveal the nature of the ground in the chief canvas. However, the way in which Christ’s blue cloak is painted with ultramarine and lead white over smalt in the main portion of the canvas, but with smalt only in the lower strip, suggests that this strip was added after significant work had been done on the picture. So too does the use of smalt for the sky in the strip on the left.1 Since it is likely that Titian worked on the painting for a long time, these additions were probably made by him. Nothing in the provenance of the picture suggests that so radical a modification would have been made at a later date.
The stretcher is of pine, with crossbars, and was probably made in 1937.
Materials and Technique
X‐radiography has confirmed changes that could be seen or suspected from the surface, and has revealed many others (figs 2 and 3).
A collar seems originally to have been intended for the Pharisee: it was sketched in rapidly with lead white (or at least with paint containing lead white). The Pharisee’s ear was moved. The white linen of his bunched sleeve was much revised and the leather flaps that fall over it were painted afterwards, on top of it. Other forms seem to have been painted out where the scarf meets the belt, and there are revisions near his lower hand.
Christ’s head was much revised. It was originally tilted to the left, with the eyes higher – in the case of the left eye, about 2.5 cm higher. A fold of drapery originally passed across Christ’s right forearm (this is very clearly visible in the relief of the paint), his neckline was also higher, and the folds of his left sleeve were altered, as was the character of his cuff. The coin was originally less foreshortened and there was lettering on its farther rim, which was covered by the cloak.
Christ’s cloak and the sky are painted with ultramarine, mixed with lead white in the sky and painted over a layer of lead white and ochre in the cloak.
The red garment worn by Christ was painted with varying mixtures of lead white, red iron‐earth pigments and red lake. The Pharisee’s cloak was painted with lead white, ochreous orange and orpiment. The scarf was painted directly on top of this with smalt.2
Conservation
The painting was varnished ‘with mastic varnish only’ after its acquisition by the National Gallery in 1852. The varnish was revived by the ‘Pettenkofer process’ in 1864. The painting was revarnished after surface cleaning by ‘Dyer’ in 1888. The ‘surface’ was ‘repaired’ by ‘Buttery’ in 1914. The varnish was again revived by the Pettenkofer process in 1925. After a test patch had been cleaned in April 1934, a decision was made to reline the painting and to restore it early in 1937. The work was undertaken by Helmut Ruhemann between February and September of that year. A wax surface polish, perished and ingrained with dirt, was removed in February 1952.
Condition
The painting is in good condition but abrasion, colour changes, disfiguring pentimenti and the deterioration of the restorations of 1937 all diminish the favourable first impression.
Old photographs reveal that the shadows in the folds of Christ’s blue cloak – between the two hands, over Christ’s right shoulder, beside his raised arm – have blanched. This has a major effect on the composition because the upper part of Christ’s arm no longer appears to project from his body. The blots of yellowed blue on the fold of drapery passing over Christ’s left sleeve appear to be areas of discoloured retouching.
The distracting dash of white in the drapery beside Christ’s raised hand must originally have been less brilliant – a lake glaze may have faded here.
The face of the Pharisee is very thinly painted and somewhat worn; this is also true of the Scribe (the figure behind him wearing spectacles). The sky, which includes some passages of blue violently dashed in and a cloud swept rapidly around the profile of the Pharisee to the left, is unlikely to have looked so patchy and improvisatory originally. It is the character of the sky that might suggest that Titian had left the painting unfinished. The curious patch of vermilion in the fingers beside Christ’s raised index finger might also suggest this explanation.
[page 261] [page 262]It seems unlikely that the colour of the scarf worn by the Pharisee, a grey‐brown with dark brown stripes, is original. The stripes may have been green. The scarf itself was blue but the pigment – smalt – with which it was painted has deteriorated.
The Signature
TITIANVS / .F. is written on the pilaster on the right (fig. 1). The first T is taller than the other letters. The letters are painted with confidence and have (under magnification) the same consistency and particle size – and have also sustained the same damage – as paint of similar character elsewhere. Thus there is no reason to dispute its authenticity.
Attribution and Date
For the two centuries when this painting hung in the sacristy of the Escorial (see below) its status as an autograph work by Titian seems never to have been disputed. It also enjoyed a high reputation when in the collection of Marshal Soult. However, in the year following its arrival in Trafalgar Square some witnesses to the Select Committee of 1853 deprecated its acquisition. The Revd Henry Wellesley, a distinguished collector and connoisseur, especially of drawings, stated that a good director would not have made the purchase. The artist, connoisseur and controversialist Morris Moore said that it was ‘falsely ascribed to Titian’, although he did not wish to ‘condemn it’ because it was a work of his school and possessed ‘considerable merit of colour’.3 The Gallery’s official catalogues described the painting as by Titian, but Crowe and Cavalcaselle did not accept it as his work.4 Eventually, in the Abridged Catalogue of 1889, Burton changed the attribution from ‘Vecellio’ (meaning Titian) to ‘School of Vecellio’.5 It retained this designation until, presumably at Holmes’s instigation, it was attributed tentatively to Paris Bordone in the catalogue of 1929.6 In this period the only dissenting voice known to me was that of Charles Ricketts in his monograph of 1910, in which he conceded that there were ‘traces of the collaboration of Palma Giovane in the Pharisee, but in substance it remains a fine and genuine picture, and it should be placed on the line’.7
When the painting was shown in the Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures at the National Gallery in 1947 the painting’s status was reconsidered:The cleaning makes it plain that the painting of a part of the surface could not be by Titian himself. The more finished parts especially, the beard of Christ’s questioner and his right arm and hand for instance, are painted in a niggling manner. On the other hand, the X‐rays show equally clearly that the picture is no copy. … The X‐ray transparency of the whole picture … appears to show a first painting typical of Titian in his last years, and worthy of him in its depth of passion and of form. This is probably one of the many pictures left in his studio at his death and finished by a more ordinary painter.8 The text is an example of connoisseurship disregarding the evidence of provenance, from which it is nearly certain that this was the painting Titian described in October 1568 as one he had recently completed and sent to Spain (see below). It seems likely from the technical evidence (see above) that [page 263]the painting was worked on over a long period; and in its original conception, with its powerful contrasts of characterisation and texture, strong gestures and lighting, it recalls the Ecce Homo (fig. 4, p. 203), which was completed in 1543.9 It seems safe to suppose that it was not begun much before that date. It is, however, not impossible that it was executed entirely in the 1560s.

Detail of the signature. © The National Gallery, London.

X‐radiograph of NG 224. © The National Gallery, London.
For Gould the ‘extent of studio assistance’ could not be ‘authoritatively defined’, but the hypothesis that there had been some such assistance had ‘long been recognised’. The areas of execution that he found unacceptable as ‘late Titian’ were the ‘head of the questioner, his white sleeve, and (in its present state)… Christ’s blue mantle’.10 This was a significant move away from the orthodox view – found in Tietze’s monograph of 1936 and Berenson’s Lists of 1957 – that the painting was a workshop piece.11 Wethey went further and declared the picture to be largely autograph.12 Although it is possible that there was some intervention by assistants in less important passages, the painting is surely characteristic of Titian, especially in the heads and hands.
[page 264]
X‐radiograph of the coin. © The National Gallery, London.
Subject
The painting shows Christ being interrogated by the Pharisees who sought to trick him into making a statement offensive to the Roman rulers of Palestine, as recounted by the three Synoptic Gospels.
Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way. (Matthew 22:17–22 – see also Mark 12:15–17; Luke 20:21–26)Titian has possibly responded to the fact that the Gospels distinguish between two classes of opponent to Christ: ‘the chief priests and the scribes’ (Luke 20:19), or the ‘Pharisees’ and the ‘Herodians’ (Mark 12:13). The spectacles given to the second figure surely suggest that he should be considered as a ‘scribe’.
The subject is very rare in art. It is said by Louis Réau and Gertrude Schiller never to have been represented before Titian.13 It was first painted by him, probably in 1516, for a very special purpose. This version, on panel, now in Dresden (fig. 2, p. 201), seems to have served as a cupboard door in a room in the Via Coperta adjacent to the Castello in Ferrara where Duke Alfonso d’Este kept his considerable collection of ancient coins and medals. Vasari describes it as ‘una testa di cristo, maravigliosa e stupenda, a cui un villano ebreo mostra la moneta di Cesare’ (‘a head of Christ, marvellous and wonderful, to whom a foul jew is shewing the coinage of Caesar’) and as something incorporated in a cupboard door (‘nella porta d’un armario’). This is confirmed by a letter written by Alessandro Fiaschi to Duke Ercole II on 29 April 1559 concerning the ‘studio delle medaglie’, in which there was a chimneypiece with a key on top which opened the door where there was the ‘ritratto de Signor Hiésu di mano di Titiano. Sotto detto ritratto sono alcuni cassettini dentro’ (‘the likeness of Our Lord Jesus by the hand of Titian, behind [or below] the said portrait are some small coffers within’).14
There was a reason for the Duke of Ferrara’s commission of a painting of this subject, beyond the obvious one that it connected Christ and coins, for he owed allegiance to both Pope and Emperor. He had this episode from the Gospels represented on the reverses of the gold coins he had minted, with the motto QVE. SUNT. DEI. DEO. It seems likely that it was the fame of this painting that prompted other artists to paint the subject, and Titian’s second version may have originated in a request for a replica or variant on a larger scale. The strength of the ultramarine in the cloak and of the lake in Christ’s tunic in the Dresden panel is retained in NG 224 together with more explicit gestures and a less intimate conception of the event. But Titian has given a serene authority to Christ’s features. The connection between the two paintings is reinforced by the X‐radiographs of NG 224, which reveal that the coin held by Christ was originally almost certainly one issued by Duke Alfonso: the word Ferrara may be discerned on it (fig. 3).
Previous Owners, Reputation and Acquisition
In a letter to King Philip II of 26 October 1568 Titian claimed that the painting had been recently finished and had been sent to Spain. Titian must, therefore, have painted it, or at least completed it, with Philip in mind, although it need not have been commissioned by the king – indeed Titian almost always chose the subjects of the paintings he sent to Philip.
The painting was included in the Inventario de las … pinturas … donados por Felipe II al Monasterio de El Escorial in the section devoted to the royal gift of 1574.15 It remained in the sacristy of the monastery when that room was further enriched with paintings – including additional paintings by Titian – by Philip IV in the following century, and was consistently one of the most admired works there: according to the official guide, ‘la cabeza y rostro de Christo es la major que creo se ha pintado’ (‘the head and face of Christ are, I believe, the finest that he ever painted’) and indeed in Spain it was regarded as a definitive likeness of Christ.16
In late December 1809 Joseph Bonaparte, newly created king of Spain, presented his generals with paintings plundered from the Escorial – NG 224 was one of six given to Marshal Soult.17 Nicolas‐Jean de Dieu Soult (1769–1851), created general in 1794 and Imperial Marshal in 1804, was one of the most talented of Napoleon’s commanders, who played a decisive role in the Spanish campaigns of 1808 and 1809. On 14 July 1810, soon after receiving this favour from Joseph, he was appointed, to Joseph’s dismay, Général en Chef de l’Armée du Midi, with responsibility for Andalusia, which he governed until 1812. After the surrender of Napoleon in 1814 Soult energetically adopted the royalist cause and was duly rewarded, but he later switched his loyalty back to [page 265]Napoleon. After a few years of exile he was reinstated as a marshal in 1820, made a peer in 1827, and then played an important political role under Louis‐Philippe (as Président du Conseil and Minister of War in 1840).18 His collection of pictures was internationally famous, especially for the Spanish works (of which he owned more than 100, as against 22 Italian and 23 Dutch and Flemish), and it had been largely formed in the years 1810–12 by extraction from churches and palaces in Seville, although certainly it was added to subsequently.
The sale of Soult’s ‘magnifique galerie’ in his house in the rue de l’Université took place after the death of his wife in March 1852. The executors arranged for some of the paintings (including the Titian and a Sebastiano del Piombo of Christ carrying the Cross) to be shown by the dealer Nieuwenhuys in London.19 The auction was held between 19 and 22 May in Paris.20 The catalogue appealed to the Louvre to avail itself of this opportunity to improve its holdings, and appealed also ‘aux conservateurs des musées de province’. The Louvre did indeed buy Murillo’s Immaculate Conception of the Virgin (lot 57) for 586,000 francs (£24,600), then the highest sum ever paid for an old master painting.21 Other major Spanish works went to the Berlin museum and the Hermitage.
The Trustees of the National Gallery sent the well‐respected dealer William Woodburn (brother and partner of the more difficult Samuel, whose relations with the Gallery were fraught) to bid for them. Woodburn had already viewed the paintings in Paris and in a letter of 23 April he reported to the Trustees on the ‘splendid effect’ and the ‘perfect state’ of this signed Titian, the picture which he ‘preferred of the whole collection’ and which he believed was worth £2,500.22 On 15 May, when in Boulogne, he asked for precise instructions, and he had received them by 18 May, when he told the keeper that ‘the rooms and staircase’ of the ‘ancienne galerie Lebrun’, where the works were on view, ‘were filled like a Benefit of Jenny Lind’ – a reference to the hugely popular success of the concerts for charity which had recently been given in London by the great Swedish soprano.
On 22 May Woodburn secured the Titian (lot 132) for £2,604. He wrote to recommend the firm of Chenue for its packing and transport. He then stayed on for M. Collot’s sale on 25 and 26 May, where he purchased a pastoral scene sometimes attributed to Giorgione (believed by others to be by Palma Vecchio), which, however, was eventually ceded to one of the Trustees, Lord Lansdowne (presumably because it was not deemed to be of good enough quality for the Gallery). The two paintings travelled back together, accompanied by a drawing by Giulio Romano of a female saint brought before the tribunal of a proconsul, in ‘pen and sepia heightened with white’, which Woodburn bought ‘with the intention and hope the Trustees will honor me by accepting it as a small donation to the National Gallery and I shall endeavour to do better in future’.23
As mentioned above (under Attribution), the purchase of the Titian was somewhat controversial. But, whatever doubts were entertained by the connoisseurs, the image seems to have captured the imagination of one of the greatest writers of the age. In Daniel Deronda (chapter 38) George Eliot describes the scholarly old Jew Mordecai lingering ‘in the National Gallery in search of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and noble types of the human form.… Some observant person may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and dark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that had touched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore a cloth cap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked him to take off.’ The novelist had certainly also visited the Gallery in this spirit and had perhaps been struck by Titian’s picture in particular, for when she describes the meeting between Mordecai and her hero – the ‘healthy grave sensitive younger Deronda’, who is to be seen as a modern secular redeemer – she comments: ‘I wish I could perpetuate those two faces, as Titian’s “Tribute Money” has perpetuated two types presenting another sort of contrast.’24
Provenance
See above. Sent to Spain by Titian shortly before 26 October 1568. Presented to the Escorial by Philip II, 1574. Presented to Marshal Soult by Joseph Bonaparte in December 1809 and sent to Paris in 1810. Sold, Paris, 22 May 1852 (lot 132), where bought for the National Gallery.
Versions and Variants
Wethey in his monograph of 1969 published what looks like a very good and very accurate old copy of the painting that was in the collection of the Duque del Infantado, Seville. It is of very similar size (100 × 107.3 cm).25 Whether this is a replica produced in Titian’s workshop or a copy made in Spain is uncertain, though the latter is more likely.
An interesting variant on the composition was lot 73 at Christie’s, London, on 31 October 1997, where it was catalogued as by a ‘Follower’ of Titian (fig. 4). It had been in Switzerland for many decades previously but was almost certainly identical to a painting offered as lot 188 in the Sedelmeyer sale in Paris, 3–5 June 1907, with a French provenance.26 The main figures are the same size as those in NG 224, and it is surely likely that it was made, or at least begun, in Titian’s workshop before the National Gallery’s picture was sent to Spain in 1568. Another painting of similar size (48 × 40 in.; 121.9 × 101.6 cm), lot 129 at Christie’s on 6 June 1938, may also have been a workshop variant (or at least a copy of one), since it combines features from both NG 224 and the Sedelmeyer painting.
In the variant sold in 1938 the Pharisee wears a simpler jacket with long sleeves, and there is a cloak under his arm; he also wears a fur‐rimmed bonnet, whereas the man behind him is bareheaded. In the Sedelmeyer painting this last change is retained but the second questioner is represented by a different white‐haired and white‐bearded head placed on the other side, behind Christ’s left shoulder. The Pharisee also has a bare right shoulder, and in place of the bold projecting entablature above Christ’s head there is a frieze of bucrania linked by festoons of drapery. One difference in this [page 266]version was not intended: Christ’s cloak is a dull grey‐brown on account of the deteriorated smalt used for the blue. In other respects the differences can mostly be explained as unimaginative attempts at invention on the part of assistants, who were perhaps encouraged by Titian not to copy too closely. Just possibly, however, both the dress of the Pharisee in one version and his bare shoulder in the other, and the hat in both, reflect Titian’s earlier ideas (and even earlier stages of execution) for the composition. This may also be true of the higher position of the Pharisee’s right arm which is found in both.

Copy of Titian’s The Tribute Money, 1560s. Oil on canvas, 120 × 94.4 cm. Private collection. © The National Gallery, London

Martino Rota after Titian, The Tribute Money, 1560s. Engraving, 27.6 × 22.8 cm. Private collection. © The National Gallery, London
As noted by Cecil Gould, Titian’s design also evidently served as a model for Van Dyck’s painting of the same subject of about 1627 in Palazzo Bianco, Genoa.27 It is sometimes claimed that this composition is reversed, which is not the case, although the Pharisee is and he is placed on the right, which corresponds with the position in the Dresden picture. Van Dyck must have depended on engravings. The painting by Giuseppe Bazzani, now in the Museum of Art, San Diego, is in turn derived from the Van Dyck.28
Prints
NG 224 was engraved by Martino Rota ( c. 1530–1583), who, according to Thieme‐Becker, was in Vienna by 1568, where he died. The engraving (fig. 5) is largely accurate but it has a neutral background and there is a greatly exaggerated glory around Christ’s head. Some minor differences may perhaps suggest that Titian continued to work on the painting after Rota had made the print. There is no white drapery across the Pharisee’s back or at Christ’s neck in the print. The Pharisee’s purse is attached to his belt with two little brass masks in the print – details characteristic of Titian but perhaps later deleted. The composition extends considerably below Christ’s hand as seems to have been Titian’s intention, but the way that Christ’s extended fingers hold a fold of his tunic must be a misinterpretation. The legend beneath the print is incorporated in a sort of plinth divided into sections by acanthus consoles. The central section is inscribed TITIANVS INVEN., together with Rota’s name and device. The relevant verses from the Vulgate occupy the larger side sections.29 Another, later, engraving, by Cornelis Galle (1576–1650) shows the composition in reverse, with another figure behind Christ (that is not, however, similar to the painted variants).30
Exhibitions
London 1947, National Gallery, Cleaned Pictures (35); Madrid 2001 ; London 2003, National Gallery (320 ) ; Madrid 2003, Museo Nacional del Prado.
[page 267]Frame
The painting is in a carved and gilded Italian cassetta frame, presumably given to it some time after the completion of conservation treatment in 1937 (fig. 6). The frame may have been altered in size but the regilding makes this unclear. The frieze is decorated with a ‘money‐pattern’ motif, which must have been chosen as a witty reference to the subject of the picture. It consists of overlapping disks, each decorated with a rosette, radiating from the centres. There is pearl ornament on the sight edge and on the outside a fluted rail that curls outwards. A portrait of Neri Corsini as a youth by Giusto Sustermans is recorded in an oval frame of identical section and ornament, which is very likely original to the painting and thus Florentine of about 1640.31 A coarse relative of this type of frame has rosettes in place of disks.32 Both types probably derive from a family of fine walnut frames, partially gilded, that were made in Florence in the second half of the sixteenth century, many of which include refined versions of the money‐pattern motif.33

Corner of the current frame of NG 224. © The National Gallery, London.
Notes
1. Report of the Scientific Department 1994/5, signed by Jilleen Nadolny. (Back to text.)
2. Ibid. (Back to text.)
3. Minutes of the Select Committee of Enquiry 1853, evidence given 21 July 1853 by Wellesley, paras 9542–3, and on 22 July 1853 by Moore, para. 9755. (Back to text.)
4. Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1877, II, pp. 386–9. (Back to text.)
5. [Burton] 1889, p. 187 – but see [Burton] 1888, p. 187. (Back to text.)
6. [Collins Baker] 1929, p. 366 (‘perhaps by Paris Bordone’). (Back to text.)
7. Ricketts 1910, p. 177. The expression ‘on the line’ derives from the most visible range of paintings in the Royal Academy’s crowded exhibition hang – those placed above a high dado. (Back to text.)
8. [Hendy] 1947, pp. 36–7, no. 35. (Back to text.)
9. Wethey 1969, pp. 79–80, no. 21, plate 91. (Back to text.)
10. Gould 1969, p. 275. (Back to text.)
11. Tietze 1936, II, p. 293; Berenson 1957, p. 187. (Back to text.)
12. Wethey 1969, p. 165, no. 148. (Back to text.)
13. Réau 1955–9, II, 2, 1957, pp. 321–2; Schiller 1966–80, I, p. 166; Kirschbaum 1972, IV, cols 571–2. (Back to text.)
14. Vasari/Milanesi, VII, p. 434; for Fiaschi’s letter see Hood and Hope 1977, p. 547 and note 62. For the collection of coins and medals in Ferrara see Campori 1870. (Back to text.)
15. Cuevas’s inventory p. 139 (cited by Gould 1975, p. 275). (Back to text.)
16. Siguenza 1988, p. 529. (Back to text.)
17. Cano Rivero 2003, p. 110, note 82, quotes the decree of 27 December 1809 in which the Titian is imperfectly described as ‘el d° (sic) del César di Tiziano’. Authority to export the painting from Spain was obtained on 22 August 1810 ( ibid. , note 83). (Back to text.)
18. Ibid. , pp. 109–13 (Back to text.)
19. Minutes cited in note 3 above, evidence of Moore, para. 9756. (Back to text.)
20. The sale had originally been proposed for 24–26 May and some catalogues were printed with these dates. (Back to text.)
21. The Tsar of Russia and the Queen of Spain were underbidders. The picture was ceded to Spain in 1941 and is today in the Prado. (Back to text.)
22. NG/90/1852. (Back to text.)
23. Letters in the National Gallery dossier, I can find no further trace of the drawing. The sum spent on the ‘Giorgione’ was £168. For this episode see Minutes cited in note 3, para. 9761, where Moore alleged that the picture was ‘purchased for the Nation’ but we have ‘never been allowed even to see it’ because it was ‘considerately taken off our hands by one of the trustees’. The sum of £1,500 had been allocated by the Treasury for this purchase. It cannot be the Portrait of an Antique Collector, which was no. 49 in the Lansdowne House catalogue of 1897 (see Pignatti 1971, p. 117, A5, and plate 209), since this is not a pastoral. (Back to text.)
24. Book V, chapter 38, paras 5 and 6, and chapter 40, para. 18 (pp. 529 and 552–3 in the Penguin Classics edition of 1986). See Witemeyer 1979, pp. 102–4, for a commentary on the second of these two passages. He assumes that George Eliot had the Dresden Tribute Money in mind, and that painting certainly made a great impression on her and on George Lewes during their stay in Dresden in 1858, but the earlier reference to Mordecai’s search in the National Gallery points to NG 224. (Back to text.)
25. Wethey 1969, p. 165, copy no. 3, plate 130. (Back to text.)
26. Sold as formerly in the collection of Baron de Bully, so presumably Baronne de Bully sale, Château de Cueilly, 21 March 1891 (Lugt 49786), and before that with Chevalier Sebastian Errard, 23 April 1832. (Back to text.)
27. Gould 1975, p. 275. For Van Dyck’s painting see Barnes et al. 2004, p. 155, no. II.8 (entry by Barnes). (Back to text.)
28. Inventory no. 1949.084. The painting is 126.7 × 91.8 cm and dated 1742. Not included in the monographs on Bazzani that I have consulted. (Back to text.)
29. Bartsch 1802–21, XVI, p. 250, no. 5, Zerner 1979, p. 13, no. 5.1, Mauroner 1843, p. 63, no. 12. (Back to text.)
30. The figure behind Christ is presumably meant to be Saint Peter. Catelli Isola 1977, p. 64, no. 168. (Back to text.)
31. Brogi neg. no. 13717, a photograph taken in Palazzo Corsini, Florence, c. 1930. A similar pattern of frame is on Domenico Ghirlandaio’s double portrait in the Louvre, Paris (RF 216), but it has an additional slope at the sight edge. (Back to text.)
32. Examples are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Solario, 11.1450), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Bronzino, 29.100.16), and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Gauguin, 1975.65). (Back to text.)
33. Examples are a Kress Collection frame (F0435) in the store of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the frame on the Pontormo portrait in the Cini Collection, Venice (v.c.6733). (Back to text.)
List of archive references cited
- London, National Gallery, Archive, curatorial dossier for NG224: William Woodburn, letters, May 1852
- London, National Gallery, Archive, NG1: Minutes of the Board of Trustees, 7 February 1828–
- London, National Gallery, Archive, NG5/90/2: Wiliam Woodburn, letter, 23 April 1852
- London, National Gallery, Archive, NG22: Sir Charles Eastlake, notebooks, c.1832–1864
- London, National Gallery, Archive, NGA2: Ralph Nicholson Wornum, papers, 1813–c.1905
- London, National Gallery, Scientific Department: Jilleen Nadolny, report, 1994/5
List of references cited
- Avery‐Quash 2011b
- Avery‐Quash, Susanna, ed., ‘The Travel Notebooks of Sir Charles Lock Eastlake’, The Walpole Society, 2 vols, centenary edition, 2011, 73
- Bartsch 1803–21
- Bartsch, Adam von, Le Peintre graveur (publication date of first volume often given as 1802), 21 vols, Vienna 1803–21
- Berenson 1957
- Berenson, Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: The Venetian School (Gordon 2011 refers to vol. 1 only), 2 vols, London 1957
- Burton 1887–1913
- [Burton, Frederic William, et al.], Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: Foreign Schools (Burton’s version of the catalogue appeared in 1889 – the 74th edition – with a preface dated December 1888, which he signed. His name appears on no other edition. Some of Wornum’s notices were retained but all biographies and most entries were Burton’s. After his retirement, additions were made by others. Many entries were significantly modified in the 81st edition of 1913 and thereafter replaced by Collins Baker), London 1887, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1892, 1894, 1898, 1901, 1906, 1913
- Campori 1870
- Campori, Giuseppe, Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventari inediti di quadri, statue, disegni, bronzi, dorerie, smalti, medaglie, avori, ecc., dal secolo XV al secolo XIX, Modena 1870
- Cano Rivero 2003
- Ignacio, Cano Rivero, ‘Seville’s Artistic Heritage during the French Occupation’, in Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, eds Gary Tinterow and Geneviève Lacambre (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum, New York, 2003), New Haven and London 2003, 93–113
- Catelli Isola 1977
- Catelli Isola, Maria, Immagini da Tiziano dalle collezioni del Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe (exh. cat. Villa della Farnesina, Rome, 1976–7), Rome 1977
- Collins Baker 1915–29
- [Collins Baker, Henry Charles], et al., National Gallery: Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of Foreign Pictures in Trafalgar Square (Collins Baker’s catalogues replaced those by Burton; the last of them, the 86th, was reprinted without revision in 1936), London 1915, 1920, 1921, 1925, 1929
- Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1877
- Crowe, Joseph Archer and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, Titian: His Life and Times. With Some Account of his Family, Chiefly from New and Unpublished Records, 2 vols, London 1877
- Eliot 1986
- Eliot, George, Daniel Deronda, Penguin Classics, 1986
- Gould 1959
- Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth‐Century Venetian School, London 1959
- Gould 1975
- Gould, Cecil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth‐Century Italian Schools, London 1975 (repr., 1987)
- Hendy 1947
- Hendy, Philip, An exhibition of cleaned pictures (1936–47) (Hendy signs the introductory text – he may not have been author of all the catalogue entries but presumably endorsed the reattributions incorporated in them), London 1947
- Hood and Hope 1977
- Hood, William and Charles Hope, ‘Titian’s Vatican Altarpiece and the Pictures Underneath’, Art Bulletin, December 1977, LIX, 4, 534–52
- Joannides and Dunkerton 2007
- Joannides, Paul and Jill Dunkerton, ‘“A Boy with a Bird” in the National Gallery: Two Responses to a Titian Question’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 2007, 28, 36–57
- Kirschbaum 1972
- Kirschbaum, Engelbert, Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, 8 vols (1968–76), Freiburg 1972
- Mauroner 1943
- Mauroner, Fabio, Le Incisioni di Tiziano, Padua 1943
- Minutes 1853
- Minutes of the Select Committee of Enquiry, 1853
- Penny 1998
- Penny, Nicholas, ‘Un’introduzione ai taccuini di Sir Charles Eastlake’, in Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle: Conoscitore e conservatore, ed. Anna Chiara Tommasi (papers from the Convegno held in 1997 at Legnago, Verona), Venice 1998, 277–89
- Penny 2004
- Penny, Nicholas, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth‐Century Italian Paintings, Volume I, Paintings from Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona, London 2004
- Pignatti 1971
- Pignatti, Terisio, Giorgione, London 1971
- Réau 1955–9
- Réau, Louis, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols (vol. 2 in 2 parts, vol. 3 in 3 parts), Paris 1955–9
- Ricketts 1910
- Ricketts, Charles, Titian, London 1910
- Schiller 1966–80
- Schiller, Gertrud, Ikonographie der Christlichen Kunst, 6 vols in 7, Gütersloh 1966–80
- Sigüenza 1605
- Sigüenza, José de, Fray, La Fundación del monasterio de El Escorial, Madrid 1605 (reprinted, 1963; reprinted, 1988)
- Simon 2007
- Simon, Jacob, British Picture Framemakers 1600–1950 (National Portrait Gallery online dictionary), https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/programmes/conservation/directory-of-british-framemakers/, accessed 21 May 2024, 1st edn, 2007
- Tietze 1936
- Tietze, Hans, Tizian: Leben und Werk, 2 vols, Vienna 1936
- Vasari 1878–85
- Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols, Florence 1878–85
- Wethey 1969–75
- Wethey, Harold E., The Paintings of Titian (1. The Religious Paintings, 1969; 2. The Portraits, 1971; 3. The Mythological and Historical Paintings, 1975), 3 vols, London 1969–75
- Witemeyer 1979
- Witemeyer, Hugh, George Eliot and the Visual Arts, New Haven and London 1979
- Zerner 1979
- Zerner, Henri, ed., Italian Artists of the Sixteenth Century, The Illustrated Bartsch, XXXIII (formerly 16, ii), New York 1979
List of exhibitions cited
- London 1947–8, National Gallery
- London, National Gallery, An Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures (1936–1947), 1947–8
- London 2003
- London, National Gallery, 2003
- Madrid 2001
- Madrid, 2001
- Madrid 2003
- Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2003
The Organisation of the Catalogue
Artists are listed alphabetically and separate works by the same artists are ordered chronologically (rather than by date of accession). The division of an artist’s work between catalogues has been avoided in the past, but Titian presents a special problem. His work from before 1540 has been left for another volume and his later productions are presented here together with works by rivals, followers, pupils and imitators.
I have included one painting which seems to be a pastiche made soon after Titian’s death (A Concert, NG 3) and another which is a copy of one of his compositions, probably made later than 1600 (The Trinity, NG 4222), but not A Boy with a Bird (NG 933), which has often been taken for a seventeenth‐century imitation of Titian. The light cloud of drapery around the upper arm and the outlining of the fingers recall Titian’s Noli me tangere (NG 270) of c. 1515. It may be an excerpt from a painting of Venus and Adonis, a composition discussed in this catalogue (pp. 274–91), but if so must, as Paul Joannides has proposed, be an early version. Arguments in favour of the autograph status of this curious morsel are presented by Joannides and Jill Dunkerton in volume 28 of the National Gallery Technical Bulletin.
A good case could easily be made for including works by Rottenhammer, Elsheimer and El Greco, all of whom painted in Venice and were formed, or at least reformed, as artists by that experience. But readers will expect to find their work in other catalogues and it is unlikely that my colleagues would have consented to their appropriation. It may therefore seem inconsistent to have included The Conversion of Mary Magdalene (NG 1241) which is probably by Pedro Campaña, who was Netherlandish by birth and worked for many years in Spain. He was probably only briefly resident in Venice, but this painting was commissioned by a Venetian patrician both as a record of his family and as a record of a fresco in a Venetian church, so it seemed wrong to omit it.
As in the first volume of the sixteenth‐century Italian paintings, the entries, which are more discursive than was formerly the case in the Gallery’s catalogues, have been divided into sections with titles intended to help readers select the topic that interests them. Much material concerning previous owners is supplied and much on the circumstances of the work’s acquisition, but a succinct, factual summary of provenance is also supplied separately for ease of consultation.
The information on picture frames provided in the first volume attracted more comment in print than any other feature of that book. Here I have also drawn attention both to old frames of distinction and to frames made for the National Gallery. The reader should note that Jacob Simon at the National Portrait Gallery has created an online directory of framemakers which includes all the craftsmen mentioned here as employed by, or as suppliers to, the National Gallery.
An account of the conservators employed by the Gallery to varnish, line, clean, repair and retouch before the establishment of the Gallery’s own Conservation Department is incorporated in the introduction to the first volume (Penny 2004, pp. xiv–xv). A great deal of information about the conservation of the National Gallery’s paintings is provided and I have tried to relate the conservation history to the provenance, identifying not only nineteenth‐century restorers but also, sometimes, those from earlier centuries.
A question‐mark is used to indicate a doubt as to the authorship of a painting in preference to the formula of ‘Attributed to’ or ‘Ascribed to’. Comprehensive listing of references made in recent art‐historical literature has not been attempted. References in the notes are abbreviations of entries in the bibliography. I have tried to identify the actual authors of exhibition catalogues and of anonymous guides.
A Note on Manuscript Material Cited
References are made in the notes to manuscript material (chiefly letters) studied in British family papers – for example, those of the Earls of Carlisle and of the Dukes of Hamilton – and also to material studied in public and church archives in Venice – for example, confraternity manuscripts in the care of the parish of S. Trovaso, the parish records kept in S. Silvestro, and wills, inventories and financial records in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia (here abbreviated to ASV). Most frequent reference, however, is made to the Archive of the National Gallery itself: the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Trustees, with the associated papers, the Gallery accounts, the diary and other papers of Ralph Nicholson Wornum, and above all the notebooks or travel diaries kept by Sir Charles Eastlake on his continental tours between 1852 and 1864 (there is also one for 1830). Since there is more than one notebook for each annual tour, the number of the notebook cited is given in parentheses – thus ‘MS notebook 1864 (2)’ for the second in 1864. I have published an account of Eastlake’s methods and motives for compiling these notebooks in ‘Un’introduzione ai taccuini di Sir Charles Eastlake’ in Anna Chiara Tommasi, ed., Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle: Conoscitore e conservatore (papers from the Convegno held in 1997 at Legnago, Verona), Venice 1998, pp. 277–89. They are currently being transcribed and edited by Susanna Avery‐Quash for publication by the Walpole Society.
About this version
Version 1, generated from files NP_2008__16.xml dated 06/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; entry for NG294 reintegrated into main document; entries for NG16, NG26, NG224, NG277, NG674, NG1318 & NG1324-NG1326, NG1883-NG1884, NG3948, NG4452, NG6376, NG6420 and NG6490 prepared for publication; entries for NG16, NG26, NG224, NG277, NG294, NG674, NG1318 & NG1324-NG1326, NG1883-NG1884, NG3948, NG4452, NG6376, NG6420 and NG6490 proofread and corrected.
Cite this entry
- Permalink (this version)
- https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAO-000B-0000-0000
- Permalink (latest version)
- https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E8E-000B-0000-0000
- Chicago style
- Penny, Nicholas. “NG 224, The Tribute Money”. 2008, online version 1, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAO-000B-0000-0000.
- Harvard style
- Penny, Nicholas (2008) NG 224, The Tribute Money. Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAO-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 19 March 2025).
- MHRA style
- Penny, Nicholas, NG 224, The Tribute Money (National Gallery, 2008; online version 1, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAO-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 19 March 2025]