Titian's Base Reference
Christie's
The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red
Sea is Titian’s complete
woodcut printed from 12 blocks, circa 1514-1515, on 12 sheets of laid paper. In the work, Moses’ extended arm serves to
protect the Egyptians. But it is the dog in
the far left that corrupts the reference. When Titan was designing the woodcut,
Venice was barely surviving the war with the League of Cambrai. As imperial
troops retreated, to show their scorn for the foreign invaders, they were said
to have bared their buttocks to the fleeing German soldiers. The dog may be a
cultural reference to that bawdy behavior.
Christie's