Narrative and ‘realistic’ elements are not entirely suppressed in the Louvre Allegory (Plate 1) but they are minimized: Titian's pictorial choices—a format that we may justifiably call square, a predominantly profile disposition, a tightly-filled surface, a shallow depth of field, and abrupt rhythms—stress proposition above event, ideography above representation. The picture was presumably a bespoke creation, commissioned by a specific client with specific demands and designed to carry a specific if still elusive message related to sortilege and the control—or abandonment—of love. But notwithstanding the Louvre Allegory's apparently recondite nature, another version of it was laid-in by Titian or a member of his studio—but perhaps as a ‘proofing’ rather than a repetition. This painting, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Figure 6.1; oil on canvas, 95 × 127 cm.), shows the same basic composition in a 1:1.25 format. It includes the seated woman, Cupid, and supplicant girl but excludes the figure at the right—presumably a satyr but not clearly recognizable as such—raising a basket.

This painting's facture does not resemble that of Padovanino, to whom it has been attributed, and an old, partial X-ray kindly shown to me by Dr. Francesca Del Torre reveals beneath the seated woman's present head an obviously Titianesque underpainting in which, paralleling the Louvre picture, her head is turned slightly outwards and her hair is enlaced with pearls.