Madonna in Glory with the Christ Child and Sts Francis and Alvise with the Donor

The powerful, animated figures, together with a view of Venice in the background, are typical of Titian’s style in the early 1520s. Though it certainly took its inspiration from Raphael’s Madonna da Foligno, painted about 1511, Titian’s figures appear to possess a much higher degree of reality because of their expressive movements and the rich variety of colour in which they are painted.