Nathaniel Silver, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection, discusses the historic reunion of Titian’s series of Poesie paintings.

Between 1551 and 1562, Titian painted one of the most celebrated mythological cycles in the history of western art. Made for King Philip II of Spain, these images were dubbed “poesie,” or the pictorial equivalents of poetry. The six profoundly original paintings, reimagining the encounters of gods and mortals recounted by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, are reunited for the first time in a multi-venue exhibition, beginning in London and culminating at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 2021 (12 August 2021 to 2 January 2022). This talk will explore the paintings, Titian’s original approach to the subject matter, and touch upon the recent cleaning of the Gardner’s Europa.