1514
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red Sea is a 1514 by Titian, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This massive print shows Pharaoh’s soldiers drowning in the Red Sea while Israelites walk safely on dry land. The woodcut is made of 12 separate blocks joined together—like a giant puzzle print. The chaos is wild: waves crash, bodies twist, and horses rear up in terror. Titian made the original drawing, but this print came years later. A publisher named Domenico dalle Greche printed it in 1549, long after Titian moved on. Most prints from 1515 were small, but this one was meant to hang on a wall like a painting. Imagine the noise of the scene. If you like drama like this, check out Titian’s oil paintings at The Cleveland Museum of Art.
This composition is made up of 12 separately printed woodcuts to create one image in grand scale. The size rivals that of a history painting, and, unlike most prints, the composition would have been hung on the wall. This is confirmed by the lack of complete impressions from the date of the print's creation—around 1515. This and all extant impressions date from a later edition, published in 1549 by the publisher Domenico dalle Greche (Italian, active 1543–1558). The woodcut is based on a drawing by the Venetian master Titian, and the bold, expressive, and irregular marks of the woodcutter…
Titian may have identified the Egyptians in this composition, drowned in the Red Sea as they pursue the fleeing Israelites, with the League of Cambrai, a military alliance formed by the major powers in southern Europe and a menace to his hometown of Venice.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Tiziano Vecellio (Italian: ; c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( TISH-ən), was an Italian Renaissance painter. The most important artist of Renaissance Venetian…
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