The Lovers (Giulio Romano)

Since it was poorly stored and kept off public display due to its subject matter until 1920, it has significant damage, including three large breaks in the canvas sealed with coarse plasters on the reverse and other damage to the paint and varnish layer both before and after the transfer[1] It now hangs in the Hermitage Museum.

Its title is tentative and it has also been known by several others: The work was produced in 1524–1525 at an unknown location, since the artist left Rome in 1524 and arrived in Mantua the following year, where he was mainly occupied with major commissions.

That Berlin version was moved to the Sanssouci Palace in 1930 and recorded in Schloss Reinsberg in 1942, but presumed lost later in the Second World War.

[8] Johann Friedrich Reiffenstein bought the work from Thomas Jenkins in London for Catherine the Great.

In a letter to Thomas Pitt dated 8 September 1780, Gavin Hamilton reported that Jenkins had sold Catherine many works but that "the Giulio Romano [i.e.