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Thanks to the generous support of Save Venice Honorary Director Richard K. Riess, another depiction of the Annunciation by Titian will undergo conservation treatment. This Annunciation, which scholars suggest dates to 1535-40, was given to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco by Melio da Cortona in his last will and testament in 1555. Titian’s painting is considered to be among the first prestigious art works displayed in the newly-constructed Scuola, some ten years prior to the creation of Tintoretto’s elaborate decorative cycle which began in 1564. It is now installed high on the wall over the grand staircase of the Scuola in an elaborate gilded wooden frame that bears the donor’s family crest.

Although admired by critics of Renaissance art, Titian’s painting has had an outsized influence in contemporary art, having served as the point of departure for a famous series of variations by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932). Richter first saw Titian’s picture in 1972 when he visited Venice representing West Germany in the Biennale. In 2018, Titian’s painting underwent a campaign of scientific analysis and maintenance led by Giulio Bono before being featured in the exhibition Tiziano / Gerard Richter. Il Cielo sulla Terra, in Mantova. This treatment revealed that the painting was covered by a layer of oxidized varnish, as well as areas of overpainting from a previous conservation that have now altered and have become blotchy in appearance, particularly in the area of the Virgin’s blue robe and the darkened landscape behind her. Bono and his team will now undertake a full conservation treatment beginning over the summer of 2021, which will include the removal of the darkened varnish and disfiguring overpainting, restoring greater legibility of the original colors and three-dimensionality of the perspective between the figures, architecture, and landscape in the background.