As the National Gallery prepares to celebrate its 200th anniversary in May, Carla Passino delves into the fascinating history of 10 of its paintings, from artistic triumphs to ugly ducklings and a clever fake
To say nothing of the dog
Bacchus and Ariadne lends itself to a cornucopia of superlatives. It is one of the finest works by one of the greatest Old Masters, capturing a scene from one of the most enthralling classical myths, as sung by two of antiquity’s most distinguished poets. It has everything that befits a masterpiece, from captivating colours to dramatic action and exquisite detail: the emotion gripping Ariadne, whose body still faces the ship of faithless Theseus as her face turns towards the carefree Bacchus; the smitten god’s ungraceful leap from his cheetah-drawn chariot, too lost in the princess’s beauty to pay attention to his step; the motley retinue of nymphs, satyrs and a snake-clad Laocoön revelling in a drunken dance; and, up in the sky, golden stars hinting at the couple’s future. Perhaps less fittingly, however, it also includes a little black lap dog, a toy spaniel of the kind so popular in 16thcentury courts. It goes up to a young satyr, barking, albeit more curious than menacing.
Titian added the dog at a later stage, possibly as a nod to his patron, Alfonso d’Este, whose companion it may have been (it wears a collar).
This wasn’t the only time the Master showed a penchant for inserting pooches in his work, however, whether in his paintings of the goddess Diana, always surrounded by canine hunting companions, or in his depictions of Venus, who rarely appears without one. Some critics, such as art historian Simona Cohen from the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, believe Titian painted dogs as symbols—at times of seduction, at other times of treachery or human bestiality—but it’s much jollier to think that he simply really liked them.
Bone of contention
Such a small painting, such a big stir. In 1991, when Nicholas Penny, then a curator and later director of the National Gallery, called The Madonna of the Pinks a genuine Raphael, the attribution proved enormously contentious. Painted in 1506–07, the tiny work (a mere 9in by 11in) had been deemed a copy of a missing original by the Renaissance master. However, Penny noticed pentimenti—reworked areas where a Master has changed his mind, unlikely in a copy—which suggested the Madonna was authentic. His views were upheld in a symposium of experts organised by the National Gallery and scientific analysis revealed an underdrawing coherent with Raphael’s other work. Nonetheless, some scholars, including the late James Beck, pointed to the painting’s ‘deficiencies’, such as ‘the malformed feet of the Child’, and insisted it might be no more than an 18th- or 19th-century copy. Science put that pa
