Caesar Caligula is one of the Eleven Caesars, a series of eleven half-length portraits of Roman emperors painted by Titian in 1536-40 for Federico II, Duke of Mantua. They were among his best-known works, inspired by Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars. Titian's paintings were originally housed in a new room in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. Bernardino Campi added a twelfth portrait in 1562.
The portraits were copied by Flemish engravers in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who added engravings of twelve Roman empresses. Between 1627 and 1628 the paintings were sold to Charles I of England by Vincenzo II Gonzaga, and when Charles I's Royal Collection was broken up and sold after his execution by the English Commonwealth, the Eleven Caesars passed in 1651 into the collection of Philip IV of Spain. They were all destroyed in a catastrophic fire at the Royal Alcázar of Madrid in 1734 and are now known only from copies and engravings. This one is by Aegidius Sadeler.
Unique quality material
Print on handmade Amalfi paper with frame Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in) With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in) Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges, handmade beech wood frame
Print on painter's canvas Size: 100 x 75 cm (39.4 x 29.5 in) Material: artwork printed on very fine-grain painter's canvas Frame: Light brown beech wood and wood pulp, handmade
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