Titian’s “great, large and famous piece” was given by Philip IV of Spain to Charles I, during his 1623 visit to Madrid as Prince of Wales. Named the Pardo Venus after the Spanish palace where it once hung, it is now thought to represent Jupiter’s rape of Antiope in the guise of a satyr.

Titian’s sprawling work inevitably dominates the room, forming the pagan counterpart to Giulio Romano’s Nativity.