Posted by This post is about Madonna and Child paintings by Raphael and Botticelli in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie.
Raphael, Madonna with Child, St. John and a Child Saint (Madonna Terranuova)
Of the five paintings of the Virgin Mary by Raphael owned by the Gemäldegalerie, the Madonna Terranuova (named for the collection from which it was acquired), which dates from circa 1505, and hence from the beginning of the artist’s Florentine period, is the largest and most monumental panel, and the only one in tondo form.
Together with the Madonna Connestabile (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage), which dates from 1504, it is one of Raphael’s earliest paintings in this format. It can be traced to an earlier pen-and-ink drawing by Raphael (Lille) from the earlier Umbrian period, which shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with the young John the Baptist; here they are flanked by two background figures: an angel (Michael) and Saint Joseph. In the drawing, then, there was no space for a landscape. The drawing was later cut down, becoming semicircular above, and a large section is missing on the lower right, which originally showed the Christ Child’s legs, the Virgin’s lower left arm, and Joseph’s hand. Researchers regarded a contemporary copy of the drawing now in Berlin as preserving the original, pristine condition of the compositional drawing in Lille, but the differences between the two should not be overlooked.
In the Berlin drawing, the Virgin’s lower left arm emerges from her cloak, the hand open, in a way that resembles the painting. In the Lille drawing, in contrast, the cloak does not conceal Mary’s now visible upper arm. Similar deviations are noticeable with regard to Joseph’s hands. Given the deviations in the Berlin copy in relation to the original drawing, it cannot be simply assumed that the Berlin version reflects the missing parts of the original drawing in Lille. Instead, the Berlin drawing probably represents a different stage of compositional development, or may be a variant from the hand of an unknown Umbrian artist. A fragment of the cartoon showing the head of the Virgin is found in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett (my note: see below). The pictorial conception corresponds to an Umbrian compositional schema dating from the late 15th century, one adopted by Raphael from Perugino (1493; Paris, Musée du Louvre) and adapted in the early Berlin panel (1502; no. 145).
After deciding to use the tondo form for the Madonna Terranuova, he omitted the flanking saints, which must now have seemed to him old-fashioned, dividing the background of the composition horizontally precisely at the lateral axis into a lower half, which is covered by a balustrade, and an upper half, which displays a landscape with an expansive sky, against which the head and shoulder contours of the Virgin are set off sharply. By juxtaposing the infant John the Baptist on the left with the figure of another, half-nude boy with halo on the right as a counterpart,
Raphael creates the type of pyramidal or triangular composition he would often use subsequently. Noticeable in the soft sfumato, the extroverted gestures, and the developed spatiality is the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, who had returned to Florence from Milan in 1503. His art made a deep impression on Raphael, who borrowed the motif of the Virgin’s gracefully outstretched left hand from Leonardo’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder (1501 ; the best version, possibly an original, is owned by the Duke of Buccleuch).
Raphael introduces this motif only during a later working stage. Infrared reflectography shows the initial preliminary drawing of the left-hand. It “was supposed to rest on the thigh, gently supporting the foot of the child” (J. Meyer zur Capellen 1994)| 200 Masterpieces of European Painting – Gemaldegalerie Berlin, 2019).
Head of the “Madonna Terranuova” (fragment of the cardboard), drawing, around 1505. Black pencil, heightened with white, stippled, on paper.
Despite the badly damaged, even fragmentary state of preservation, the outstanding quality of this drawing cannot be overlooked. The draughtsman created the tilted head of a young woman of particular delicacy with a black pen. This is an original-size drawing (a so-called cartoon), which apparently served to transfer this head to the picture support when a painting was being executed. This was done mechanically, namely by fingering through the most important lines, which also explains why the paper has suffered so much. Nonetheless, it is in the hand of Raphael, as it depicts the head of the so-called Madonna Terranuova (so named after the collection from which it was acquired), now housed in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. (DK 2019)
Raphael, Mary with the Child / Madonna Solly, painting, around 1500/1502
In Raphael’s picture, the child’s head turn and line of sight are newly motivated by the book that Maria is holding out to him with her right hand and which she is reading herself: the book is the common focus of attention for mother and child. Raphael also follows Perugino’s Umbrian stylistic type of the half-length Madonna in front of a landscape with gentle hill contours that are enlivened by individual trees. But the approach to a psychological penetration and visualization of the interrelationship between mother and child is new, a first achievement of his more modern, more humane conception of art – he varied the motif of the book in a stylistically and temporally related Madonna picture (Los Angeles, Norton Simon Museum of Art ), to which various preliminary drawings refer, which were sometimes erroneously associated (as in the 1931 report) with the Madonna Solly.
A pen drawing by Raphael in the Louvre (no. 1607) is related to the latter. – The bird, which the child holds with a fine cord in the right and left hand, symbolizes the soul (cf. Rubens cat. no. 763) and, as a goldfinch eating thistles and thorns, points to the passion and resurrection of Christ. – A second, contemporary version (1961 in an Italian private collection) was published by Longhi as the original first version”. The latter, however, is merely a copy.* Perhaps the Madonna Dotallevi (Ident. No. 147) is the earliest.
The Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is considered one of the most important artists of the Renaissance. Countless reproductions have been made of his works, with some creators adding a slant or “modern touch”, resulting in a work that has acquired a momentum and trajectory in its own right. Many of these re-workings are so removed from the originals that Botticelli has become a household name and can be used as a touchstone for fashion and lifestyle without any mention being made of his paintings. Products are named after him, popular-culture personalities allude to his motifs in fashioning their own image, and some of the characters portrayed in his works – particularly his “Venus” – are now firmly embedded in collective awareness.
Sandro Botticelli “Mary with the Child and Singing Angels” (102A).- Sandro Botticelli “Saint Sebastian” (1128).- Sandro Botticelli, workshop “Giuliani de’ Medici” (106B).- Sandro Botticelli, workshop “Profile portrait of a young woman” (106A) Reason: reorganization of the collection
“The Virgin and Child with Singing Angels (Raczyński Tondo)” was painted around 1480.
Possibly the cyclorama belonged to the brothers of S. Francesco in Florence. Mary is crowned as the queen of heaven, and at the same time she is the compassionate mother of the Christ child destined for sacrifice. He grabs her breast. The nurturing Mary was considered by theologians to be the mother of all people and the giver of salvation. Singing angels praise her, holding lilies as symbols of purity. Just as one always looked for the ideal of earthly female beauty in the face and figure of Mary, so one can see in the angels the embodiment of youthful, harmonious proportions. Botticelli mastered the demanding format with a well thought-out pictorial arrangement that takes up the round of the boundary: the Madonna is enthroned in the center of multiple circling movements.| Prestel Museum Guide – Picture Gallery Berlin, 2017
Below you can see another picture by Botticelli, “Mary with the child and angels carrying candlesticks“painted around 1485/1490, which belonged to the collection of the Gemäldegalerie but is no longer there. Most probably it has been destroyed in May 1945 in the control tower of the anti-aircraft bunker in Berlin’s Friedrichshain..
