ABSTRACT
By 1550, Titian had become famous and wealthy. He was besieged by numerous important commissions, many more than even his large shop could accommodate. Throughout his life, Titian continued to prove himself a shrewd businessman. By the 1550s, he possessed numerous agricultural and commercial holdings from which he derived a substantial income, aside from the considerable profit he earned from his paintings. It is a prosperous and self-assured Titian that one sees in the self-portrait dating around 1550, painted when the artist was in his sixties. This painting was probably in Titian's studio at the time of his death. Although completed in its other parts, the hands of the figure remain unfinished. Much of Titian's career from the mid-1550s onward revolved around commissions from Philip II, his new and eager patron. Titian's first portrait of Philip was begun in Milan in 1548 and shipped to him from Venice the following year.
