Franz von Lenbach
Sacred and profane Love (Copy of a painting by Titian (1485/90–1576), c. 1514, in the Galleria Borghese, Rome), 1864
Öl auf Leinwand, 114,4 x 276,3 cm
1864 durch Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack erworben
Inv. Nr. 11429
Sacred and profane Love (Copy of a painting by Titian (1485/90–1576), c. 1514, in the Galleria Borghese, Rome)
The elegance and compelling physical presence of the two women personifying sacred and profane love, and their integration in the landscape, made Titian’s painting a first high-water mark in his artistic development. Jacob Burckhardt wrote in 1855 that works like this ‘exude the kind of visionary magic that can be described only in terms of similes and should perhaps not be desecrated at all by the use of words’. Schack was deeply impressed by the quality of Lenbach’s copy, placing it on a par with the original.