During Titian’s time (1488 or 1490–1576), artists began painting on canvas rather than on wood panels. A master of color, the Venetian painter was both popular and prolific. His work was so sought after that even with the help of numerous assistants, he could not keep up with demand.

His body of works established oil color on canvas as the typical medium of western pictorial tradition. Among his most well-known paintings are Sacred and Profane Love (c. 1515) and Venus of Urbino (1538).