19TH CENTURY, IMPRESSED SCEPTRE AND KPM MARK ABOVE H

Understood today as an observation on the transient nature of love and beauty, this celebrated image was in the past thought to be a double portrait of, variously, Titian and his mistress, Alfonso d'Este and Laura dei Dianti, or Federico Gonzaga and Isabella Boschetti. The original version (Louvre, Paris) is thought to date from Iirca 1515, and was painted for the Gonzagas, Dukes of Mantua, from whose collection it was sold to King Charles I of England, passing eventually into the collection of King Louis XIV of France. Besides numerous later copies and variants, three autograph, or partly autograph, versions are known (Barcelona, Museo de Artes Decorativas: Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; and Prague, Castle)