Explore the History of this artwork, Woman with a Mirror.
It is known to have been in the Gonzaga family's collection in Mantua from which it was bought by Charles I of England. After Charles' execution, it was sold off and purchased by Louis XIV of France for the Palace of Versailles.Several attempts have been made to identify the main female figure – these have included Titian's lover, Alfonso d'Este's lover Laura Dianti, or Federico Gonzaga's lover Isabella Boschetti. None of these theories fit the date ascribed to the painting through analysis of its style, which is 1512–15, when the courts of Mantua and Ferrara were first becoming interested in Titian.
Dianti was painted by Titian in a portrait of 1523. She is probably just a model who appears in other paintings – the same woman with frizzy reddish blonde hair appears in a series of paintings from around the same time (including the Flora at the Uffizi, the Vanity in Munich, the Salome in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, the Violante and the Young woman in a black dress in Vienna) as well as several Madonnas and the clothed figure in Sacred and Profane Love. As happened with the 'Bella' series, it was still customary for the artist's workshop to create similar works with variations from the same studies if not from the same cartoon.
Many versions of the work are known, equal in quality to the original but not as large. The best are in the MNAC in Barcelona, the gallery of Prague Castle, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Louis XIV of France Salome Violante National Gallery of Art Gonzaga Uffizi Isabella Boschetti Palace of Versailles Louis XIV Prague Castle Barcelona Federico Gonzaga Alfonso d'Este Vanity Titian Flora Mantua cartoon MNAC Young woman in a black dress Vienna Galleria Doria Pamphilj Laura Dianti Charles I of England portrait of 1523 Sacred and Profane Love