Today a Raphael arrives in Turin to meet his imitators

From December 21 until February 23, at the Museum of Palazzo Madama in Turin, you can see a masterpiece attributed to Raphael. The work is a Holy Family belonging to the collections of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

 

Probably painted around 1506, after Raphael’s arrival in Florence, the work has been identified as one of the two “pictures of Our Lady” reported by Giorgio Vasari among those made for Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.

 

In the eighteenth century the work was documented to be in France, in the famous collection of Pierre Crozat (1665-1740). It arrived in Russia in 1772, following the purchase of Empress Catherine II and it was restored in 1827 with the transfer of paint from the table to the canvas.

 

Why is this work leaving St. Petersburg? Why is it going to Turin?
It happens frequently that a work created by an artist well known to the general public is moved from one museum to another with the only aim of attracting more visitors. Fortunately, in this case, the transfer has instead an historical justification strongly linked to the territory.

 

The circulation of works by Raphael is in fact attested in documentary and figurative level, not only in Florence and Rome, but also in Piedmont. In 1507, for example, the painter Martin Spanzotti returned to the Duke of Savoy, the “Lady Florence”, identified with the “Virgin of Orleans” by Raphael today at the Musée Condé in Chantilly.

 

Conceptual Fine Arts asked Simone Baicocco, curator of the museum of Ancient Art of Palazzo Madama, to specify that relationships between Raphael and Turin.

 

“Thanks to a group of copies, previously identified in Piedmont, also the painting Madonna d’Orléans by Raffaello (Chantilly, Musée Condé) has found its acknowledgment in this region” explains Baiocco. “The raphaelite masterpiece is indeed to be pinpointed in a letter, dated October 25^th1507, that Martino Spanzotti wrote to the Duke of Savoy. The content relates that the madonna fiorentina was returned to the Duke, together with a copy realized by the piedmontese artist. As a matter of fact, the art historians have detected at least four versions by Gerolamo Giovenone and one, of 1526, realized by Defendente Ferrari (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). That is to say, none of the versions can be attributed to the style of Spanzotti, but only to the production of his two pupils, most likely to be working at that time in his workshop. The latest of the copies by Giovenone, possibly dated around 1540, is the one that can be found, since 2005, at Palazzo Madama.

 

About Defendente Ferrari we have to say that the Museum of Ancient Art in Palazzo Madama in Turin contains several of his works: paintings that would be enough to warrant a visit to the beautiful museum.

July 17, 2015