Best Pamono Tiziano Vecellio, Ponte Dei Pugni, 1600, Oil on Canvas, Framed

Titian Vecellio (Pieve di Cadore 1490 – Venice 1576) Workshop
Fight between putti on the Ponte dei Pugni in Venice

Venetian school, late 16th century

Oil on canvas (105 x 144 cm. – Framed 128 x 167 cm.)

Provenance: Lepke Kunst-Auction-Haus in Berlin, Auction of 1.6.1926, lot 150, as Titian Vecellio, attribution to Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929)

Of the more than four hundred bridges that dot the countless canals of Venice, there is one, in particular, that is linked to one of the most singular historical events of the city: it is the Ponte dei Pugni, located in the Dorsoduro district near Campo San Barnaba, which owes its its name to an ancient tradition, now abandoned, and which gave the theme to our interesting painting.

In fact, it was a very small battlefield, suspended above the canal, in which a real “War of the Fists” took place, here unusually depicted with children fighting animatedly.

Always considered one of the most heartfelt traditions of Venice, dating back to the 15th century but then banned in the 18th century, it is still commemorated today during the period of the Venice Carnival: it was nothing more than a fight between the inhabitants of two opposing factions, the Castellani and the Nicolotti, who clashed on the upper part of the bridge, at the time completely devoid of railings, with the aim of throwing their opponents into the water.

The painting, which is part of the Venetian school of the 16th century, has a traditional attribution to the catalogue of Titian Vecellio (Pieve di Cadore 1490 – Venice 1576) carried out in 1926 by art historians Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), founder in 1904 of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin, Max Jakob Friedländer (1867-1958) and Hermann Voss (1884-1969).
Nevertheless, for the sake of attribution caution, we prefer to keep the painting as a work from his workshop, leaving open the hypothesis that the master may have likely taken part in the curious composition.

In many works by Tiziano Vecellio there are figures of putti, not simple decorative elements, but bearers of an important symbolic role: they often represent youth, innocence, light, but they can also have connections with deeper themes such as love, life and death.

The composition of our painting slavishly takes up one of the friezes, entitled ‘’The Fight of the Children on the Bridge’’, that Titian created for his palace in Venice, located at Biri in the Cannaregio district. Two similar works, in the form of a frieze, are in the possession of Count Lanskoronski in Vienna and Bruckmann in Munich.

The image suggests a sense of vitality that captures the soul of the viewer, and for this reason it must be interpreted in an allegorical key: these small children intent on having fun are therefore a hymn to life, and an invitation to abandon ourselves to the impulses and sensations that it offers us.

As a comparison, we can mention the large altarpiece of the “Madonna Assunta” (Church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice) where many of the poses of the depicted cherubs are mirrored to those of our painting (see the photos of the details).

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The work is sold complete with a pleasant frame and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic sheet.