Focus on Venus of Urbino and explore the Description.
The painting's subject stares straight at the viewer, not embarrassed by her nudity. In her right hand, she holds a posy of roses; while she holds her other hand over her genitals. In the near background is a dog, often a symbol of fidelity. In a different space in the background two maids are shown rummaging through a cassone chest, where clothes were often kept.
The detailed depiction of the interior setting is unusual, perhaps unique, for a Titian painting. Titian did work for the 21-year-old Ippolito de' Medici, reluctantly made a cardinal (though not a priest) by his uncle, Pope Clement VII. He was trying to pursue a military career, and was a papal diplomat. On 20 October 1532, he spent the night in Venice with Angela del Moro, or Angela Zaffetta, a leading courtesan in Venice and occasional dining companion of Titian and Aretino, the latter a friend of the cardinal. Titian painted Ippolito's portrait, and it seems likely that he was asked to add a nude portrait of Angela Zaffetta, or that Titian decided to paint one in the hope he would like it.
On 20 December 1534, Titian wrote to Ippolito's chamberlain in Rome saying that he had been working on a painting of a woman for the cardinal. Ippolito died in August 1535, and apparently never saw the painting, which was still in Titian's studio when Guidobaldo II della Rovere, the 24-year-old son of the Duke of Urbino came in January 1538 to sit for a portrait. As letters from him and his mother show, he was extremely keen to buy it, and did so some months later; he referred to it simply as "the nude woman", and was worried Titian would sell it to someone else. Later that year he inherited the Duchy of Urbino on the death of his father, hence the painting acquired the name by which it is most commonly known, although it seems it was mostly kept in Pesaro.
Alternatively, the painting may have been commissioned by Guidobaldo, possibly to celebrate his marriage in 1534 to the 10-year-old Giulia Varano, which made him Duke of Camerino, or its consummation, which was probably a few years later. Some critics have seen references to marriage in details such as the maids at the cassone, where the corredo or trousseau of clothes generally given to the bride by her husband's family were stored. Rona Goffen sees Venus's hand "caressing" her genitals as such a reference, as it was believed at the time that a female "emission" or orgasm was necessary for conception to take place, and female masturbation was therefore allowed only in cases where the male had ejaculated and withdrawn. The production of heirs was of great concern in elite marriages. Even the little dog on the bed has been brought into the argument; an identical dog is shown in Titian's portrait of the duke's mother Eleonora Gonzaga, the reasoning being that the dog identifies the house as a della Rovere home, and that it remains quiet indicates that the viewer is the husband of the woman.
A recent theory by Józef Grabski suggests that the painting represents an allegory of marital love between the famous Italian poet Vittoria Colonna and her deceased husband, Fernando d'Ávalos. Grabski supports his theory through analyzing various visual clues and symbols, the most prominent being the classic column in front of the trees in the window in the right half, a small detail on the painting that imitates the Colonna Family coat of arms.
Ippolito de' Medici Titian Venice female masturbation right Colonna Family fidelity Pesaro Aretino masturbation Eleonora Gonzaga trousseau Duke of Camerino Vittoria Colonna Duchy of Urbino cassone Guidobaldo II della Rovere Józef Grabski Venus Pope Clement VII Duke of Urbino Fernando d'Ávalos papal diplomat