Small Cowper Madonna
Painting by Raphael
The Small Cowper Madonna is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary and Child, in a typical Italian countryside. It has been dated to around 1504–1505, the middle of the High Renaissance.
History.
It is not known exactly why the "Small Cowper Madonna" was painted. It was probably either a private commission or for the general art market; images of the Madonna and Child were often given as wedding presents. It is widely thought that the church on the right hand side of the painting is the church of San Bernardino, where the Dukes of Urbino (where Raphael was born) were buried, and it has been suggested that the presence of the church means the painting may have been "commissioned by the family for devotional purposes."
Around 1780, the painting was sold to the prominent art collector George Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper, whose surname would lend the painting its name. The painting was passed down through six generations of Cowpers before it was sold to Duveen Brothers, Inc. in 1913. In 1914, it was sold to American magnate Peter A.B. Widener, who displayed the painting at Lynnewood Hall. Peter A.B. Widener's son, Joseph E. Widener, donated the "Small Cowper Madonna" to the National Gallery of Art in 1942, along with the rest of Lynnewood Hall's extensive art collection.
In 2015 the National Gallery of Art loaned the "Small Cowper Madonna" to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (U.S.) to be exhibited alongside "The Virgin and Child (The Northbrook Madonna)". The Northbrook Madonna is in the Worcester Art Museum's permanent collection and was once attributed to Raphael. One hope of the exhibition was to identify the artist who painted the Northbrook Madonna. The painter of the Northbrook Madonna was later identified by the museum as perhaps being Domenico Alfani, a close friend of Raphael's whose works have often been misattributed to the better-known artist.
Description.
Sitting in the center of the work in a bright red dress is the Madonna. She is fair skinned with blonde hair. She sits comfortably on a wooden bench. Across her lap is a dark drapery upon which her right hand delicately sits. There appears to be a sheer translucent ribbon elegantly flowing across the top of her dress and behind her head. The faintest golden halo miraculously surrounds her head. In her left hand she holds the baby Christ, who embraces her with one arm around her back, the other around her neck. He looks back over his shoulder with a coy smile. Behind them, a beautifully clear and bright day unfolds. Off in the distance two figures appear to be ambling toward a reflective pond, enjoying the green scenery around them. A large structure stands at the end of a long path, thought to be the Church of San Bernardino in Urbino.
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National Gallery of Art
Art museum in Washington, D.C.
The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction. The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Lessing J. Rosenwald, Samuel Henry Kress, Rush Harrison Kress, Peter Arrell Browne Widener, Joseph E. Widener, and Chester Dale. The Gallery's collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, medals, and decorative arts traces the development of Western art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder.
The Gallery's campus includes the original neoclassical West Building designed by John Russell Pope, which is linked underground to the modernist East Building, designed by I. M. Pei, and is next to the Sculpture Garden. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art. It is one of the largest museums in North America.
Attendance rose to nearly 3.3 million visitors in 2022, making it third on the list of most-visited museums in the United States. Of the top three art museums in the United States by annual visitors, it is the only one that has no admission fee.
History.
Origins.
Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh banker and Treasury Secretary from 1921 until 1932, began gathering a private collection of old master paintings and sculptures during World War I. During the late 1920s, Mellon decided to direct his collecting efforts towards the establishment of a new national gallery for the United States.
In 1930, partly for tax reasons, Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, which was to be the legal owner of works intended for the gallery. In 1930–1931, the Trust made its first major acquisition, 21 paintings from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg as part of the Soviet sale of Hermitage paintings, including such masterpieces as Raphael's "Alba Madonna," Titian's "Venus with a Mirror", and Jan van Eyck's "Annunciation".
In 1929 Mellon had initiated contact with the recently appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Greeley Abbot. Mellon was appointed in 1931 as a Commissioner of the Institution's National Gallery of Art. When the director of the Gallery retired, Mellon asked Abbot not to appoint a successor, as he proposed to endow a new building with funds for expansion of the collections.
However, Mellon's trial for tax evasion, centering on the Trust and the Hermitage paintings, caused the plan to be modified. In 1935, Mellon announced in "The Washington Star" his intention to establish a new gallery for old masters, separate from the Smithsonian. When asked by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on "the attitude of the Government towards the gift".
In January 1937, Mellon formally offered to create the new Gallery. On his birthday, 24 March 1937, an Act of Congress accepted the collection and building funds (provided through the Trust), and approved the construction of a museum on the National Mall.
The new gallery was to be effectively self-governing, not controlled by the Smithsonian, but took the old name "National Gallery of Art" while the Smithsonian's gallery would be renamed the "National Collection of Fine Arts" (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum).
Construction and later history.
The museum stands on the former site of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, where in 1881 a disgruntled office seeker, Charles Guiteau, shot President James Garfield (see James A. Garfield assassination). The station was demolished in 1908 because it did not conform to the McMillan Plan for the Mall. In 1918, temporary war buildings were constructed on the site; these were demolished by 1921 to construct the foundation of the George Washington Memorial Building, which was never completed. The site was then reassigned to the new National Gallery of Art.
Designed by architect John Russell Pope, the new structure was completed and accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17, 1941. At the time of its inception it was the largest marble structure in the world. Neither Mellon nor Pope lived to see the museum completed; both died in late August 1937, only two months after excavation had begun.
As anticipated by Mellon, the creation of the National Gallery encouraged the donation of other substantial art collections by a number of private donors. Founding benefactors included such individuals as Paul Mellon, Samuel H. Kress, Rush H. Kress, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Chester Dale, Joseph Widener, Lessing J. Rosenwald and Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch.
The Gallery's East Building was constructed in the 1970s on much of the remaining land left over from the original congressional action. Andrew Mellon's children, Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, funded the building. Designed by architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter. The new building was built to house the Museum's collection of modern paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, as well as study and research centers and offices. The design received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981.
The final addition to the complex is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Completed and opened to the public on May 23, 1999, the location provides an outdoor setting for exhibiting a number of large pieces from the Museum's contemporary sculpture collection.
In 2011, an extensive refurbishment and renovation of the French galleries were undertaken. As part of the celebration of the reopening of this wing, organist Alexander Frey performed 4 sold-out recitals of music of France in one weekend in the French Gallery.
Operations.
The National Gallery of Art is supported through a private-public partnership. The United States federal government provides funds, through annual appropriations, to support the museum's operations and maintenance. All artwork, as well as special programs, are provided through private donations and funds. The museum is not part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Noted directors of the National Gallery have included David E. Finley, Jr. (1938–1956), John Walker (1956–1968), and J. Carter Brown (1968–1993). Earl A. "Rusty" Powell III was named director in 1993. In March 2019 he was succeeded by Kaywin Feldman, past director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The museum hired Evelyn Carmen Ramos, the first woman and the first person of color to be the chief curatorial and conservation officer, in 2021.
The president of the museum is billionaire businessman Mitchell Rales and its chairperson is Sharon Rockefeller.
Entry to both buildings of the National Gallery of Art is free of charge. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. It is closed on December 25 and January 1.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Gallery was largely closed to the public. However, visitors were able to schedule appointments to access the west building in small numbers.
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.
The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), the National Gallery of Art's research institute, was founded in 1979. The Center offers visiting professorships, a fellowship program, and undergraduate internship opportunities, as well as a publication program.
The first dean of CASVA, architectural historian Henry A. Millon, was appointed in 1980 . He was succeeded by Elizabeth Cropper in 2000. Steven Nelson became the third dean of CASVA in 2020.
Architecture.
The museum comprises two buildings: the West Building (1941) and the East Building (1978), linked by an underground passage. The West Building, composed of pink Tennessee marble, was designed in 1937 by architect John Russell Pope in a neoclassical style (as is Pope's other notable building in Washington, D.C., the Jefferson Memorial). Designed in the form of an elongated H, the building is centered on a domed rotunda modeled on the interior of the Pantheon in Rome. Extending east and west from the rotunda, a pair of skylit sculpture halls provide its main circulation spine. Bright garden courts provide a counterpoint to the long main axis of the building.
The West Building has an extensive collection of paintings and sculptures by European masters from the medieval period through the late 19th century, as well as pre-20th century works by American artists. Highlights of the collection include paintings by Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci.
In contrast, the design of the East Building, by architect I. M. Pei, is geometrical, dividing the trapezoidal shape of the site into two triangles: one contains public galleries, and the other houses a library, offices, and a study center. The triangles establish a motif that is echoed throughout the building, realized in every dimension.
The East Building's central feature is a high atrium designed as an open interior court that is enclosed by a sculptural space spanning . The atrium is centered on the same axis that forms the circulation spine for the West Building and is constructed in the same Tennessee marble.
However, in 2005 the joints attaching the marble panels to the walls began to show signs of strain, creating a risk that panels might fall onto visitors below. In 2008, NGA officials decided that it had become necessary to remove and reinstall all of the panels. The renovation was completed in 2016.
The East Building focuses on modern and contemporary art, with a collection including works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder, a 1977 mural by Robert Motherwell and works by many other artists. The East Building also contains the main offices of the NGA and a large research facility, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). Among the highlights of the East Building in 2012 was an exhibition of Barnett Newman's "The Stations of the Cross" series of 14 black and white paintings (1958–66). Newman painted them after he had recovered from a heart attack; they are usually regarded as the peak of his achievement. The series has also been seen as a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
The two buildings are connected by a walkway beneath 4th street, called "the Concourse" on the museum's map. In 2008, the National Gallery of Art commissioned American artist Leo Villareal to transform the Concourse into an artistic installation. "Multiverse" is one of Villareal's largest and most complex light sculpture by light count, featuring approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED nodes that run through channels along the entire -long space. The concourse also includes the food court and a gift shop.
The final element of the National Gallery of Art complex, the Sculpture Garden was completed in 1999 after more than 30 years of planning. To the west of the West Building, on the opposite side of Seventh Street, the Sculpture Garden was designed by landscape architect Laurie Olin as an outdoor gallery for monumental modern sculpture.
The Sculpture Garden contains plantings of Native American species of canopy and flowering trees, shrubs, ground covers, and perennials. A circular reflecting pool and fountain form the center of its design, which arching pathways of granite and crushed stone complement. (The pool becomes an ice-skating rink during the winter.) The sculptures exhibited in the surrounding landscaped area include pieces by Marc Chagall, David Smith, Mark Di Suvero, Roy Lichtenstein, Sol LeWitt, Tony Smith, Roxy Paine, Joan Miró, Louise Bourgeois, and Hector Guimard.
Renovations.
The NGA's West Building was renovated from 2007 to 2009. Although some galleries closed for periods of time, others remained open.
After congressional testimony that the East Building suffered from "systematic structural failures", NGA adopted a Master Renovations Plan in 1999. This plan established the timeline for closing the building, and planned for the renovation of the electronic security systems, elevators, and HVAC. Space between the ceilings of existing galleries and the building's skylights (which was never completed when the building was constructed in 1978) would be renovated into two, high, hexagonal Tower Galleries. The galleries would have a combined of space and will be lit by skylights. A rooftop sculpture garden would also be added. NGA officials said that the Tower Galleries would probably house modern art, and the creation of a distinct "Rothko Room" was possible.
Beginning in 2011, NGA undertook an $85 million restoration of the East Building's façade. The East Building is clad in thick pink marble panels. The panels are held about away from the wall by stainless steel anchors. Gravity holds the panel in the bottom anchors (which are placed at each corner), while "button head" anchors (stainless steel posts with large, flat heads) at the top corners keep the panel upright. Mortar was used on the gravity anchors to level the stones. Joints of flexible colored neoprene were placed between the panels. This system was designed to allow each panel to hang independent of its neighbors, and NGA officials say they are not aware of any other panel system like it.
However, many panels were accidentally mortared together. Seasonal heating and cooling of the façade, infiltration of moisture, and shrinkage of the building's structural concrete by over time caused extensive damage to the façade. In 2005, regular maintenance showed that some panels were cracked or significantly damaged, while others leaned by more than out from the building (threatening to fall).
The NGA hired the structural engineering firm Robert Silman Associates to determine the cause of the problem. Although the Gallery began raising private funds to fix the issue, eventually federal funding was used to repair the building. In 2012, the NGA chose a joint venture, Balfour Beatty/Smoot, to complete the repairs. Anodized aluminum anchors replaced the stainless steel ones, and the top corner anchors were moved to the center of the top edge of each stone. The neoprene joints were removed and new colored silicone gaskets installed, and leveling screws rather than mortar used to keep the panels square. Work began in November 2011, and originally was scheduled to end in 2014. By February 2012, however, the contractor said work on the façade would end in late 2013, and site restoration would take place in 2014. The East Building remained open throughout the project.
In March 2013, the National Gallery of Art announced a $68.4 million renovation to the East Building. This included $38.4 million to refurbish the interior mechanical plant of the structure, and $30 million to create new exhibition space. Because the angular interior space of the East Building made it impossible to close off galleries, the renovation required all but the atrium and offices to close by December 2013. The structure remained closed for three years. The architectural firm of Hartman-Cox oversaw both aspects of the renovation.
A group of benefactors — which included Victoria and Roger Sant, Mitchell and Emily Rales, and David Rubenstein — privately financed the renovation. The "Washington Post" reported that the donation was one of the largest the NGA had received in a decade. NGA staff said that they would use the closure to conserve artwork, plan purchases, and develop exhibitions. Plans for renovating conservation, construction, exhibition prep, groundskeeping, office, storage, and other internal facilities were also ready, but would not be implemented for many years.
Collection.
The NGA's collection galleries and Sculpture Garden display European and American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, and decorative arts. Paintings in the permanent collection date from the Middle Ages to the present. The Italian Renaissance collection includes two panels from Duccio's "Maesta", the tondo of the "Adoration of the Magi" by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi, a Botticelli work on the same subject, Giorgione's "Allendale Nativity", Giovanni Bellini's "The Feast of the Gods", "Ginevra de' Benci" (the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas) and groups of works by Titian and Raphael.
The collections include paintings by many European masters, including a version of "Saint Martin and the Beggar," by El Greco, and works by Matthias Grünewald, Cranach the Elder, Rogier van der Weyden, Albrecht Dürer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Francisco Goya, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and Eugène Delacroix, among others. The collection of sculpture and decorative arts includes such works as the "Chalice" of Abbot Suger of St-Denis and a collection of work by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas. Other highlights of the permanent collection include the second of the two original sets of Thomas Cole's series of paintings titled "The Voyage of Life", (the first set is at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York) and the original version of "Watson and the Shark" by John Singleton Copley (two other versions are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Detroit Institute of Arts).
The National Gallery's print collection comprises 75,000 prints, in addition to rare illustrated books. It includes collections of works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, William Blake, Mary Cassatt, Edvard Munch, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. The collection began with 400 prints donated by five collectors in 1941. In 1942, Joseph E. Widener donated his entire collection of nearly 2,000 works. In 1943, Lessing Rosenwald donated his collection of 8,000 old master and modern prints; between 1943 and 1979, he donated almost 14,000 more works. In 2008, Dave and Reba White Williams donated their collection of more than 5,200 American prints.
In 2013, the NGA purchased from a private French collection Gerard van Honthorst's 1623 painting, "The Concert", which had not been publicly viewed since 1795. After initially displaying the "The Concert" in a special installation in the West Building, the NGA moved the painting to a permanent display in the museum's Dutch and Flemish galleries. Art experts estimated the sale price of "The Concert" at $20 million, though the NGA did not reveal the amount that it had paid.
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Niccolini-Cowper Madonna
Painting by Raphael
The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna, also known as the Large Cowper Madonna, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary and Jesus Christ as the Christ Child, against a blue sky.
The painting.
The painting may have been the last of Raphael's Florentine paintings before he left for Rome. It is more complex than a similar painting the "Small Cowper Madonna" of a few years earlier. The Virgin and Child fill the canvas, creating an imposing effect. The two are more closely related, both by the positioning of their bodies and their intimacy. Raphael may have derived the talent for creating a natural intimacy through Leonardo da Vinci. The portrayal of the infant's energy is reminiscent of the works of Michelangelo. The compelling, playful Child reaches for the Madonna's top as if wanting to nurse. Both paintings bear the name of their former owners.
An inscription on the painting, center right on the border of Madonna's bodice: MDVIII.R.V.PIN tells that it was painted in 1508 by Raphael of Urbino.
Story.
Cowper's art collection absorbed a great deal of his time and money. His most notable possessions are probably the two Cowper Madonna paintings Raphael: "Small Cowper Madonna" and this painting, the "Niccolini-Cowper Madonna". "Tribuna of the Uffizi" shows Cowper looking at the "Niccolini-Cowper Madonna" painting as it is offered by Johann Zoffany. Zoffany had purchased the painting from the Niccolini family in 1782 and sold it to Cowper in 1785.
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Stalingrad Madonna
Drawing of the Virgin Mary
The Stalingrad Madonna () is an image of the Virgin Mary drawn by a German soldier, Kurt Reuber (1906–1944), in 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad. The original is displayed in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin, while copies now hang in the cathedrals of Berlin, Coventry, and Kazan Cathedral, Volgograd, as a sign of the reconciliation between Germany and its enemies the United Kingdom and Russia during the Second World War.
Design.
The piece is a simple charcoal sketch, measuring three feet by four feet (900 mm × 1200 mm). Mary is depicted wrapped in a large shawl, holding the infant Jesus close to her cheek. On the right border are the words "Licht, Leben, Liebe" ("Light, Life, Love"), from the Gospel of John. On the left, Reuber wrote "Weihnachten im Kessel 1942" ("Christmas in the Kettle 1942") and at the bottom "Festung Stalingrad" ("Fortress Stalingrad"). "Kessel" ("kettle") is the German term for an encircled military area, and Fortress Stalingrad was the label for the encircled army promoted in the Nazi press.
History.
The picture was drawn by Lieutenant Kurt Reuber, a German staff physician and Protestant pastor, in December 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad. Reuber wrote: I wondered for a long while what I should paint, and in the end I decided on a Madonna, or mother and child. I have turned my hole in the frozen mud into a studio. The space is too small for me to be able to see the picture properly, so I climb on to a stool and look down at it from above, to get the perspective right. Everything is repeatedly knocked over, and my pencils vanish into the mud. There is nothing to lean my big picture of the Madonna against, except a sloping, home-made table past which I can just manage to squeeze. There are no proper materials and I have used a Russian map for paper. But I wish I could tell you how absorbed I have been painting my Madonna, and how much it means to me.<br>The picture looks like this: the mother's head and the child's lean toward each other, and a large cloak enfolds them both. It is intended to symbolize "security" and "mother love". I remembered the words of St.John: light, life, and love. What more can I add? I wanted to suggest these three things in the homely and common vision of a mother with her child and the security that they represent. He added that he:went to all the bunkers, brought my drawing to the men, and chatted with them. How they sat there! Like being in their dear homes with mother for the holiday. Later, Reuber hung the drawing in his bunker for his unit celebration, which he described as a moment of Christian devotion shared by all the soldiers in his command. When according to ancient custom I opened the Christmas door, the slatted door of our bunker, and the comrades went in, they stood as if entranced, devout and too moved to speak in front of the picture on the clay wall. ...The entire celebration took place under the influence of the picture, and they thoughtfully read the words: light, life, love. ...Whether commander or simple soldier, the Madonna was always an object of outward and inward contemplation.
The "Madonna" was flown out of Stalingrad by Dr Wilhelm Grosse, his battalion commander of the 16th Panzer Division on the last transport plane to leave the encircled German 6th Army. Reuber was taken captive after the surrender of the 6th Army, and died in a Soviet prisoner of war camp in 1944. The "Madonna" and a number of letters from Reuber were delivered to his family. There they remained, until German Federal President Karl Carstens encouraged Reuber's surviving children to donate the work to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. Springer, Reuber's three children, and Prince Louis Ferdinand (in his role as chair of the Memorial Church board of trustees) attended the dedication ceremony in August 1983.
Influence.
The drawing and Reuber's letters were published shortly after the war, and Navy chaplain Arno Pötzsch wrote an apologetic book of poetry entitled "The Madonna of Stalingrad" in 1946. The work became a powerful symbol of peace in the Cold War era, as well as part of the mythologising of Stalingrad and the events of the Second World War in German society. Copies were presented, and are displayed, in the cathedrals of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), Berlin, and Coventry as a symbol of reconciliation. Similarly a Cross of Nails from Coventry is displayed with the "Madonna" in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.
"The Prisoners' Madonna".
Reuber painted a second similar picture in captivity around Christmas 1943. He was by this time in a prisoner of war camp in Yelabuga, some 1,000 kilometres north-east of Stalingrad, and the painting was made for the prisoners' newspaper. He titled it "The Prisoners' Madonna". Reuber did not live to see another Christmas, dying of illness a few weeks later on 20 January 1944.
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Northbrook Madonna
Painting attributed to Domenico Alfani
The Virgin and Child, commonly known as The Northbrook Madonna after the Northbrook Collection in England, is a painting from the early 16th century (around 1505) by an unknown artist possibly identified as Domenico Alfani. It is in the permanent collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. It was formerly attributed to Raphael, but scholars have since concluded otherwise.
Description.
The Madonna is wearing a red blouse and a dark blue skirt. She and the infant are both fair skinned with light red-orange hair. Behind them is a green landscape receding to blue mountains under a blue sky. A brown structure is on the right side of the landscape.
History.
The painting takes its name from having been in the Northbrook Collection in England. The painting was donated to the Worcester Art Museum in 1940. At the time it was attributed to Raphael, but scholars have since discarded that idea. There is no clear consensus on its authorship. It is said to possibly have been the work of a student of Raphael, and that he "may have designed it or supervised its execution", or that it "may have been the result of a collaboration, a practice that Raphael was known for throughout his career."
In 2015 the painting was exhibited alongside the "Small Cowper Madonna" by Raphael, on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition's intent was to attempt to identify the artist who painted the Northbrook Madonna, as well as to "explore Raphael's masterful interpretation and the spread of his early style among followers in Central Italy".
In October 2019, another previously unknown painting that particularly closely resembles the Northbrook Madonna was offered for auction by Dorotheum and was expected to sell for €300,000–400,000 ($US –), ultimately selling instead for $US 2,000,000 (€1,657,190).
As of 2021, the museum says the painter of the Northbrook Madonna was possibly Domenico Alfani of Umbria, a region of central Italy. Alfani and Raphael were close friends, they had studied together at the school of Pietro Perugino, and there have also been other instances in which Alfani's work has been incorrectly attributed to Raphael.
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Madonna del Prato (Raphael)
Painting by Raphael
The Madonna del Prato ("Madonna of the Meadow"), formally Madonna with the Christ Child and Saint John the Baptist, is an oil on board painting by Raphael, created in 1506, now held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is also known as the Madonna del Belvedere after its long residence in the imperial collection in the Vienna Belvedere.
Subject.
The painting was executed by twenty-three-year-old Raphael within months of his 1504–1505 arrival in Florence. The scene represents the figures of the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, and an infant John the Baptist shown in a calm grassy meadow, in a pyramidal arrangement linked by their gazes. Mary is wearing a gold-bordered blue mantle set against a red dress, extending her right leg along a diagonal. The blue symbolizes the church and the red Christ's death, with the Madonna touching hands with Jesus the uniting of Mother Church with Christ's sacrifice. Her eyes fixed on John, her head turned to the left and slightly inclined, and her hands steady him as he leans forward unsteadily to touch the miniature cross held by John. The poppy refers to Christ's passion, death and resurrection. The painting depicts a peaceful, tender and idyllic moment, disturbed only by child Jesus's grabbing at the cross held by John the Baptist, which hints to the forthcoming Passion of Jesus. This kind of serene and harmonious composition was held in very high regard by Renaissance patrons and earned Raphael a commission to paint a fresco for the Pope at the Vatican "stanze" in Rome.
Technique.
For this painting, as well as in others such as the "Madonna of the Goldfinch", Raphael followed the techniques of Leonardo da Vinci (who was also in Florence at the time) in blocking its subjects in pyramidal form; this can be observed in such works as Leonardo's "Virgin of the Rocks". A red-chalk composition study, one of many preparatory drawings for the painting made by Raphael, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1983, the Chief Conservator for Paintings at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna removed the retouchings and varnish that deformed the "Madonna of the Meadow". Restoration revealed that this painting's structure is similar to that of the "Small Cowper Madonna," and consists of translucent oil glazes, opaque underpaint and gesso ground. Furthermore, the observed damages were caused by the same factors, namely Raphael's painting technique in the robe and mantle. In the "Madonna of the Meadow," the blue robe is disfigured by a wide craquelure provoked by the uneven drying of the oil layers. Additionally, the painting is characterized by a great depth of shadows and a subtle interplay of the cool and warm tones that model the flesh. A bluish undertone, visible in the shadows and edges of the panel, underlies the creamy white and pink of the flesh. Moreover, close examination of the work suggests that the sky was painted after the figures were executed, since the blue brush strokes appear to follow the contours of the figures and are perceptible not only on the surface but also in x-radiographs. When examined using infra-red techniques, the "Madonna of the Meadow" also betrays an underdrawing, completed when the design was transferred onto the panel; the marks left by this transfer are clear, and the lines that connect them are precise, illuminating the artist's process.
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Footnotes
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Madonna (art)
Artistic representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus
In Christian art, a Madonna () is a religious depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a singular form or sometimes accompanied by the Child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from it " ma donna" 'my lady' (archaic). The Madonna and Child type is very prevalent in Christian iconography, divided into many traditional subtypes especially in Eastern Orthodox iconography, often known after the location of a notable icon of the type, such as the "Theotokos of Vladimir", "Agiosoritissa", "Blachernitissa", etc., or descriptive of the depicted posture, as in "Hodegetria", "Eleusa", etc.
The term "Madonna" in the sense of "picture or statue of the Virgin Mary" enters English usage in the 17th century, primarily in reference to works of the Italian Renaissance. In an Eastern Orthodox context, such images are typically known as "Theotokos". "Madonna" may be generally used of representations of Mary,