Alllegory of Prudence - Titian (Tiziano) Sandstone Coaster

Alllegory of Prudence - The picture portrays three human heads, facing different directions, hanging over three animal heads, depicting (from left) a wolf, a lion and a dog. The three human heads represent an allegory of the "Three Ages of Man" (youth, maturity, old age), like in the famous enigma of the Sphynx and as later described by Aristotle. Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio known in English as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno (in Veneto), in the Republic of Venice. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth. Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the famous final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.