Madonna della sedia (after Raphael)
after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1800 - 1899
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
735 mm (Diameter)
Order this imageCollection
Calke Abbey, Derbyshire
NT 290207
Caption
The original Madonna della Sedia by Raphael, a circular painting, or tondo, painted in Rome around 1513/14, is one of the most copied works of the 18th and 19th centuries. The National Trust have at least 15 painted copies, in various media, in their care, alone. Raphael's picture, once in the Uffizi, seized during the Napoleonic Wars and in Paris between 1799-1815, is now in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence. As legend has it, it was painted on the bottom of a barrel and has gained its title because the Virgin sits in a chair. She is shown as a contemporary Italian woman, wearing a gypsy scarf and green embroidered shawl over her blue dress, tenderly embracing the Christ child, dressed in yellow, and looking directly at us whilst John the Baptist stands behind. It has universal appeal but Ruskin in his Florentine diary of 1845, called it, 'a clever, well-finished, vulgar, piece of maternity, very uncopiable' – abhorring the appearance of the use of real people in devotional religious painting.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Madonna della sedia (after Raphael), after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520), 19th century. A copy of the circular painting by Raphael in the Palzzo Pitti, Florence. The Madonna wears a turban type headdress and sits with the Child on her knee. Saint John also on the right-hand side of the picture. Madonna, three-quarter length, seated, turned to right, gazing at spectator, wearing a loosely tied turban type head-dress a shawl with woven patterned stripes, red sleeves, and a blue skirt, leans down and rests her head on the Child’s brow who sits, (full-length, turned to left, gazing at spectator),on her right knee and leans against her raised left knee, wears a loose pink robe exposing both legs; Saint John, head and shoulders, on right, turned to gaze up at the Madonna with his hands held in prayer, the bottom left of the roundel is occupied by an intricately turned upright post which forms part of the chair on which the Madonna is seated, the back of the chair is composed of an elaborately embroidered strip with a long fringe.
Provenance
Calke Abbey was given to the National Trust by Henry Harpur Crewe (1921-1991) and the contents, including this painting, were acquired with the aid of a grant from the National Heritage Fund, thanks to a special allocation of money from the Government, in 1984
Credit line
Calke Abbey, The Harpur Crewe Collection (acquired with the help of the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund)
Makers and roles
after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520), publisher