La Bella

Woman in a Blue Dress

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) c. 1536

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth July 22–September 18, 2011

Nevada Museum of Art, Reno September 23–November 20, 2011

Portland Art Museum, Oregon November 25, 2011–January 29, 2012

It is the ongoing mission of the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (FIAC) to help bring outstanding Italian works of art to audiences throughout the United States. There is no more delightful masterpiece of Italian painting than Titian’s La Bella, and we are proud to have played our part in making possible its exhibition at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, and the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. In 2009 we worked with our friends in Reno and Portland in presenting another of the ravishing beauties of Italian Renaissance painting, Raphael’s La Donna Velata. We are very happy to continue the collaboration, and also to welcome the Kimbell Art Museum to its first FIAC partnership.

The most celebrated artist in Renaissance Venice, Titian is unsurpassed as a painter of beautiful women. One of his most iconic creations is popularly known as La Bella—the beautiful woman. The painting was first owned by Francesco Maria I della Rovere, duke of Urbino, a mercenary military leader. In 1536 the duke sent a letter to his agent in Venice inquiring about the progress of the “portrait of that woman in a blue dress,” whose completion he eagerly awaited. The painting in question was doubtless La Bella, which is today in the collection of the Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, in Florence. Its recent cleaning and restoration have revealed the splendor of the woman’s blue dress and the luminosity of her flesh.