The First Privy Lodging Room

The First Privy Lodging Room contains 11 paintings attributed in the inventory to Titian. It is evidently a shrine to Titian and has no strong thematic impulse: subjects range from the solemnly sacred to the flagrantly erotic. Charles must have been influenced by the picture hangs he saw at the spanish Royal Alcázar on his visit to Madrid in 1623; the Habsburgs had been important patrons of Titian. Charles I's principal painter Sir Anthony van Dyck devised a similar hang at his house in London for a room known as his 'Cabinet de Titien'.

The First Privy Lodging Room's highlights include two works by Titian coming from the Mantua sale in c.1627–8, the Entombment and Supper at Emmaus, which were recorded as a pair. Titian's nude Venus and Music is particularly remarkable for its degree of carnality and forms a surprising counterpoint to Christ's wasted body in the Entombment. Also of note are two works by Titian historically thought to depict the renaissance mercenary, Alfonso d'Avalos, the Marquis of Vasto: the stately Allocution from Mantua and the cryptic Allegory. The Allocution came from the Mantua sale and the Allegory was purchased from an 'almoneda' or auction during the aforementioned 1623 Spanish trip.