The Andrians (after Titian)
after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1598 - 1622 - 1623
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1727 x 1880 mm (68 x 74 in)
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 872152
Caption
The Andrians inhabited the Greek island, Andros. It was famous for its wine and sacred to Bacchus (Dionysus). Here they are celebrating the god of wine’s visit (his ship can be seen in the distance) with their annual bacchanal when, according to legend, the rivers flowed with wine. Two girls are singing from a sheet of music: ‘He who drinks and does not drink again does not know what drinking is.’ The Greek writer, Philostratus, describes a scene painted in antiquity and Titian, the painter of the original picture, is known to have used the text as the source for his composition adding a lovely sleeping nude lady to please his patron. The original painting, of 1523-25, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, was the third picture commissioned by Alfonso I d’Este for his study in the Ducal palace in Ferrara to complement his Worship of Venus (also Prado, Madrid) and the Bacchus and Aridane (1523), now in the National Gallery, London. This is a good early copy, and probably painted in Rome, before its removal to Spain in 1639, and before Olimpia Aldobrandini gave the original to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi in 1621, who may have been the owner who had the naked bits covered over, which this and the original had until restored. It is one of two copies at Saltram and possibly bought by Sir Joshua Reynolds for his patron on a shopping trip to Paris in 1768.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Andrians (after Titian) an early 17th century copy after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576), 1598 - 1621, prior to a sketch from the original by Anthony van Dyck (engraved by Podesta, 1636) which included the modesty foliage subsequently removed by the Prado, Madrid in 1840. A bacchanal scene with the subject matter of the Andrians drawn from Philostratus the Elder's Imagines, I, 25. The Andrians inhabited the Aegean island of Andros, famous for its wine in Antiquity. They are celebrating the annual visit of Bacchus (Dionysus), god of wine (his ship can be seen in the distance), when a fountain of water turned into wine. A smaller, inferior copy is also at Saltram (NT) and another, once owned by the artist, William Etty, is now in the National Gallery, Scotland.
Provenance
Accepted by the Treasury in part payment of death-duties from the executors of Edmund Robert Parker, 4th Earl of Morley (1877-1951) and transferred to the Trust in 1957.
Credit line
Saltram, The Morley Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Titian (Pieve di Cadore 1488/90 - Venice 1576), artist