Workshop of Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian

Perhaps Francesco Assonica, Padua and Venice, by 1566;

Wynn Ellis (1790–1875), London and Ponsborne Park, Hertfordshire;

His posthumous sale, London, Christie's (‘The Third Portion of the Wynn Ellis Collection’), 17 June 1876, lot 142 (as Titian, The Repose of the Holy Family with St John), for £6.16s.6d. to Taylor; 

Austrian Crown Prince Archduke Rudolf (1858–1889), Vienna, 1888;

Thence by family descent until

Crown Prince Rudolf Collaboration Trust, after 1918 (according to Bodmer 1945);

Baron Hugo von Grundherr zu Altenthann und Weyerhaus, Castle Mittersill, Austria (according to Bodmer 1945);

Dr Rudolf Hürlimann, Marschallgut, Mayenfeld, Canton Grisons, Switzerland, 1934;

Thence by family descent to the present owners.

Possibly G. Vasari, Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architetti, 1568, G. Milanesi (ed.), Florence 1878–1882, vol. VII, p. 456 (on Assonica's picture);

Possibly C.C. Patina, Tabellæ Selectæ ac Explicitæ dalla Patina, Padua 1691, pp. 49–50 (as copy by Padovanino);

Possibly C. Ridolfi, Le meraviglie dell’arte, 1648, D. von Haden (ed.), Berlin 1914, vol. I, p. 194 (on Assonica's picture);

S. Ticozzi, Vite dei pittori Vecellj di Cadore, Milan 1817, p. 221, n. 1 (‘this subject was treated by Titian in his youth and the replicas he made for different people at different times vary little’);

W. Suida, Tizian, Zurich–Leipzig 1933, pp. 136–37 and 174, reproduced pl. 258 (as workshop; one of ‘two versions of the composition, one in the Prado, the other in a private collection, Austria [the present work] somewhat shortened at the sides, roughly equal in quality. They are workshop paintings which seem to be executed by Titian's own hand in certain parts [...] the girl in orange-yellow clothing picking fruit is worthy of Titian himself’);

H. Tietze, Tizian, Leben und Werke, Vienna 1936, text vol., p. 158 (suggests that it is the copy by Padovanino mentioned by Patina); 

H. Bodmer, The Respose on the Flight into Egypt by Titian, A Historical and Critical Study about a neglected masterpiece of the painter, Zurich 1945, reproduced in colour p. 1 (as Titian);

H.E. Wethey, The Paintings of Titian, The Religious Paintings, vol. I, London 1969, p. 126, no. 91, under ‘Copies’, no. 2 (as workshop or copy, sixteenth century; 'a smaller version of the Escorial picture with the landscape partially eliminated, but apparently of good quality).