Portrait of the Ambassador Gabriel de Luetz d’Aramont

Gabriel   de Luetz d’Aramont was a highly skilled diplomat, but also an unscrupulous   and violent man of arms, employed by Francis I of France on numerous missions   in Turkey. He commissioned his portrait from Titian probably in 1541-1542,   during the longest of his stays in Venice. X-ray analysis of the painting has revealed to us that   the portrait had a tormented genesis: Titian   spent a lot of time on the formal layout of the portrait, as shown by the two   previous versions that emerged from the analysis. The psychological insight typical of the artist’s other   portraits is not particularly strong here, but the pictorial quality, the   refined colour choices and the play of light on the background and on the   face is remarkable.