The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red Sea
Titian • 1514 • Cleveland Museum of Art
The Submersion of Pharaoh's Army in the Red Sea, 1514–15, printed 1549. Titian (Italian, c. 1488–1576), Domenico dalle Greche (Italian, 1503–1603). Woodcut; unframed: 41.5 x 55.3 cm (16 5/16 x 21 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund, 1952.296.5
Created in 1514 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Titian worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in woodcut, measuring Unframed: 41.5 x 55.3 cm (16 5/16 x 21 3/4 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Titian builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Even the everyday is loaded: a basin, a candle, a worn shoe become small monuments to a vanished daily world.
Today the painting is held by Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Titian's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.
