Portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti
	1544-45 Oil on canvas 133.6 x 103.2 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington
				The patrician Andrea Gritti (1455­1538) was elected doge, or duke, of Venice in 1523, after having served the city as a military commander and diplomat. He was renowned for his forceful personality and his promotion of the arts and remained an active civic leader until his death in 1538. Titian painted Gritti twice during his reign as doge. Titian completed this posthumous portrait possibly as a memorial by the doge's family. Dressed in the brocade robes and conical hat of his office, Gritti makes a striking impression. Glancing sternly to the viewer's left, he gathers up his cloak with his right hand and appears to be striding forward, as if in a ceremonial procession. Titian further enhanced the monumental presence of the subject by extending his image fully to the edges of the canvas. With its free, expressive brushwork, this portrait well exemplifies Titian's mature painting style. Because the process of lining has never flattened the canvas out, the varying surface textures, such as the transparent red of the robe and the heavy impasto of the white fur and gold buttons, reveal the ways Titian applied his paints.
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