‘With the base Viall placed between my Thighes’: musical instruments and sexual subtext in Titian’s Venus with musician series

Abstract

Late in his career, Titian (and his workshop) treated the Venus with musician theme in a series of five similar paintings of unconfirmed patronage. All show the goddess in the same reclined pose, but the musician at her feet transmutes over the course of the series from organist to lutenist, and subtly changes position in the frame. Recently, the paintings and their thematic origins have elicited much debate among art historians McIver, Goffen, Falomir and others. But any mention of the painting’s musical instruments remains confined to discussion of the works’ composition, perspective, or implicit Neoplatonic or Petrarchan sensory discourse. In particular, conversation regarding Titian’s viol only highlights its crude form, as ‘proof’ of the series’ completion, after Titian’s death, by a less-skilled hand. Despite its generally noble status throughout its lifespan, the viol became a widely sexualized object in Renaissance Italian literature; the first viol-centric sexual allusion comes from Straparola’s Le piacevoli notti, ii (Venice, 1553), which closely coincides in time and place with the viol’s appearance on Titian’s canvas. In particular, considering the wealth of viol-sexualizing English poetry and drama in the following century, connections between Titian’s Venus and Le piacevoli notti, with its ultimate vogue in English Transalpina culture, warrant recognition and investigation.