Kaiser Karl V. nach der Schlacht bei Mühlberg (nach Tizian),

Titian painted his well-known equestrian portrait of Charles V during the 1548 imperial diet in Augsburg. It shows the Holy Roman Emperor at the time of the Augsburg Interim, during which he made a last, unsuccessful attempt to re-establish religious unity in the empire following his victory at the battle of Mühlberg over the Protestant forces of the Schmalkaldic League. Schack wrote of the portrait: ‘Never has the whole life of a man – the most powerful of his age – been presented in a single figure with such compelling truth, never his innermost being with such overwhelming force.’ Lenbach’s painting is the largest and finest copy he made for Schack.