words by Gabi Logan
Miguel Falomir, head of the Italian and French painting department at the National Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, uncovered a previously unknown version of Renaissance painter Titian鈥檚 鈥淪aint John the Baptist鈥 (the version you see in the picture is kept in the Gallerie dell鈥橝ccademia in Venice) early this month in the 鈥淪cattered Prado鈥, 3,100 works from the museum鈥檚 collection housed at other institutions.
A pivotal member of the 16th-century Venetian school, Titian, or Tiziano Vecelli as he is known in Italian, was renowned for his vivid colours and was regarded as a professional equal of Raphael and Michelangelo. While compiling a comprehensive catalogue on Titian鈥檚 work, Falomir came across the piece, which is in poor condition after years of neglect and several botched restoration attempts, in a church in Almeria, Spain.
Before this discovery, two distinct versions of 鈥淪aint John the Baptist鈥 by Titian were known to the art community, one in the Gallerie dell鈥橝ccademia in Venice and the other in St. Lawrence Monastery in El Escorial, Spain. The newly unearthed Titian is distinct from both the versions in Venice and El Escorial, though Matteo Ceriana, director of the Gallerie dell鈥橝ccademia, has said that 鈥渁ll three versions are interconnected鈥.
The newly uncovered piece is currently under the care of the restoration workshop at the Prado, a team of 15 curators and 20 restorers who use X-ray, infrared reflectography, and pigment analysis to uncover the original working methods and underlying artistic form of the pieces they work on. Details of the work on 鈥淪aint John the Baptist鈥 will be released in the fall as part of a Prado exhibition on the work and its restoration.
In February, the Prado鈥檚 restoration unit uncovered a new version of Leonardo da Vinci鈥檚 鈥淟a Gioconda鈥 (Mona Lisa) painted by one of da Vinci鈥檚 pupils at the same time he was working on the original.
