Old postcards Titian Vecellio

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1490–1576) was the greatest master of the Venetian school in the High and Late Renaissance. He painted biblical and mythological subjects, won international fame as a portraitist and worked for Emperor Charles V, King Philip II of Spain and several popes.

All the Soviet postcards of Titian in this subsection were printed in 1957. Mythology is represented by Danaë, a subject he painted at least six times between 1544 and 1560. The Gospel scenes are The Tribute Money, painted around 1516 on the words “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”, and Christ Carrying the Cross.

The portraits continue with Portrait of a Lady in White and Portrait of a Young Woman. Saint Sebastian comes both as a full image and as a separate detail card, and The Penitent Magdalene appears as a detail.

Together with Giorgione, Titian laid the basis of tonalism, a way of painting built on colour and subtle tonal transitions rather than on drawing.