Isabella de Osorio and
the young Philip II, possible models for Titian
During the stay in Augsburg of the then Prince Philip during the spring of 1551, he commissioned Titian to paint two pictures with a marked erotic content and a mythological theme. This much can be gathered from the King's documents conserved in the Archive of Simancas, and is revealed by Fernando Checa in his book 'Philip II: patron of the arts' which mentions the commission and describes its theme.
'one depicting the love affairs of Jupiter when, under a golden rain, he came to make love to Diana, and the other depicting the legend of Venus and Adonis'.
Titian dispatched the picture of Diana and Jupiter to Spain with a letter dated 23 March, 1553, and a few months later Prince Philip travelled to London - taking with him the painting of Diana - to comply with the obligations imposed on him by Charles V of Spain to wed Mary Tudor. In 1554, once installed in the city, he requested the artist to send the second painting, and asked for it to be delivered to him in London.
It is clear that the heir and future king wanted to have the paintings near him at those difficult times in his marriage to bring him some happy memories.
It is very probable that the lady portrayed as Diana was actually Isabella de Osorio, and that the couple formed by Venus and Adonis were in fact Isabella and Philip. The picture shows Venus-Isabella with her back to the viewer, already aware of the fate awaiting her beloved, as she strives to prevent Adonis-Philip, who holds two hunting dogs, from leaving to meet his inevitable destiny; death between the jaws of the wild boar which he intends to kill.
The fine blond youth who represents Adonis is shown wearing a small beard and moustache as worn by Philip in the portrait painted by Titian in 1551, the same year these paintings were commissioned.
Venus and Adonis, now in the Prado Museum, gives us a cheering glimpse of a possible Philip II, young and full of life, which leads us to reflect on the transformation which would make him into the stern individual remembered by history as the Prudent King.
The relationship between the young monarch and Isabella de Osorio, a lady of the court of Madrid in the city of Toro, where the young prince Charles also was, goes back to the prince's adolescent years, when on the orders of his father Charles I he was obliged to wed his cousin Maria Manuela of Portugal; the marriage was consummated on 15 November 1543, when he was 16 years old. The young couple soon moved to Valladolid, where Philip began to show his concern over his wife's obesity, although she was described as being very attractive; we know that Maria's mother advised her daughter to control her weight as she knew Philip disliked it.
At midnight on 8 July 1545, after a difficult birth, a son was born who would receive the name of Charles. Four days after the birth the princess Maria Manuela died.
Philip thus found himself at 18 a widower with a legitimate child, and this is the time that he may have had a relationship with Dona Isabella de Osorio, the sister of the Marquis of Astorga. Two years later she bore him two sons named Pedro and Bernardino, who were never officially recognised as royal bastards.
