Titian  c. 1490–1576
NG 224 
The Tribute Money

Nicholas Penny, 2008

Extracted from:
Nicholas Penny, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings, Volume II: Venice 1540–1600 (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2008).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Notes