Girl Before the Mirror

Titian's Girl Before the Mirror from around 1515, now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona, approaches the vanitas theme from an angle different from his Vanity in Munich — here the mirror is held by a second figure, transforming the private act of self-examination into a social performance with an audience. The presence of the attendant who holds the mirror gives the reflected image a quality of display, the beautiful woman shown not just to herself but to the observer, collapsing the distinction between the public gaze of portraiture and the private gaze of self-knowledge. The Barcelona location of this early Titian is somewhat unexpected — the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya is primarily known for its Romanesque and Gothic art — but its Italian Renaissance holdings include several significant works acquired through the dispersal of Catalan and Aragonese aristocratic collections over two centuries. The painting's early date places it in the same productive period as the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Violante and Young Woman in a Black Dress.

The early work shows Titian's emerging mastery of warm flesh painting, with the reflected image creating an inventive compositional device that multiplies the viewer's perspectives on the figure.