Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Location

Country: Holy See
City: Vatican City
Place: British Embassy

This is a copy after an altarpiece by Raphael, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, which was originally painted for the Convent of S. Antonio in Perugia, Italy. Raphael’s work is also known as the ‘Colonna Altarpiece’ was made in 1504-1505 and was inspired by the work of Perugino and Luca Signorelli, both based in Perugia. For the execution of the altarpiece, Raphael employed Domenico Alfani as his assistant who was responsible for the elements of the altarpiece of the 'Entombment'. Raphael’s original hung in a part of the church reserved for the nuns, who may have insisted on its conservative details, such as the elaborately clothed Christ Child. The nuns sold the altarpiece in 1678, and it was subsequently owned by Queen Christina of Sweden, the Duc d'Orléans, and the Colonna family in Rome. In 1901, J. Pierpont Morgan acquired the altarpiece, which was still in a private collection, paying the sum of two million francs. Morgan's son bequeathed the painting to the Metropolitan Museum in 1916.

The painting in the Government Art Collection is a copy after the central panel which shows the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist, St Peter and Paul and Sts Catherine of Alexandria and Lucy. It entered the collection in 1963.

Places

Subjects

book, devotional, biblical, Renaissance, beard, moustache, boy, baby, man, woman, robe, family, son, child, throne, halo, New Testament, prophet, Jesus, saint, Madonna, steps

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

(After) Raphael (1483 - 1520)

Title

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Date

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 172.50 cm, width: 162.50 cm

Acquisition

Presented by Dora Polkinghorne, March 1963

Provenance

Collection of Miss Dora Annie Polkinghorne (1889-1991); presented to the British Consulate in Florence in 1963

GAC number

7854