We’re very lucky Philip II was so indulgent with Titian

In Venice, around 1552, Titian began work on a series of six paintings for King Philip II of Spain, each of which reinterpreted a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The resulting work proved to be the apogee of his career and became what may be the most influential group of paintings in post-Renaissance European art. Studied, absorbed and channelled by successive generations of artists, from Velázquez and Rubens through to Gainsborough and latterly Freud, the impact of these works and their stylistic legacy was profound.

Three of these paintings, ‘Diana and Actaeon’, ‘Diana and Callisto’ and ‘The Death of Actaeon’ are now on display in Edinburgh in the new exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland, Titian and the Golden Age of Venetian Art. The first two are, after a long fundraising campaign, now jointly owned by the National Galleries in Edinburgh and London, while ‘The Death of Actaeon’ makes its first foray outside London since 1972.