Madonna and Child (The Bridgewater Madonna) (after Raphael)
after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1600 - 1699
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
826 x 660 mm (32½ x 26 in)
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire
NT 959458
Summary
Oil painting on panel, Madonna and Child (The Bridgewater Madonna), after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520), 17th century. An oval square-framed painting of the Madonna and Child; the Child lying on his mother's knee, turning to look at her, as she looks down at Him, both in a particular graceful combination of poses, with an elegant twist, called a contrapposto. A version in the National Gallery, London is an old copy of 'The Bridgewater Madonna' in the Sutherland collection, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland, bought by the Duke of Bridgewater from the Duke of Orléan's collection, of about 1507/1508. In the original painting the artist painted a landscape background but may have decided that a dark setting was a better foil for the subtle modelling of his figures in light and shadow. The painting was probably made as a devotional image for a private chamber. And it is only in the copies that the Christ Child's nakedness has been covered up by concealing drapery.
Provenance
Purchased by the National Trust by private treaty sale from Lord St Oswald in 2010
Credit line
Nostell Priory, The St Oswald Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
after Raphael (Urbino 1483 – Rome 1520), artist previously catalogued as after Giovanni Battista Salvi Sassoferrato (Sassoferrato 1609 - Rome 1685), artist
References
Brockwell 1915 Maurice Walter Brockwell, Catalogue of the Pictures and Other Works of Art in the Collection of Lord St Oswald at Nostell Priory, London 1915, cat. 312