Raphael
NG6596 
The Madonna of the Pinks (‘Madonna dei Garofani’)

Tom Henry, 2024

Extracted from:
Carol Plazzotta and Tom Henry, The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings: Volume IV, Raphael (London: The National Gallery, 2022).

About 1506–7

Oil on yew, 28.8 × 22.9 cm (painted area 27.9 × 22.4 cm)

Support¹

The panel is a single board of wood with vertical grain, identified as yew (fig. 1).² It is 0.8 cm thick and in good condition with just a slight convex warp and several old splits. There is a fine split at the centre in the lower part of the panel, which is visible on the front of the painting, running through Christ’s right calf. Another fine split can be seen to the right of this and there are further splits running up from the lower edge of the panel on the left. The reverse of the support has been polished, probably in the early nineteenth century.

There are three wax stamps on the reverse of the panel (bottom left as seen from the reverse). One of these (top centre) is the seal of Vincenzo Camuccini (it shows a bird with its wings spread on top of a helmet on a shield and below a crown); another is very badly damaged but might be that of Pietro Camuccini (bottom right; it shows illegible heraldry on a blason vide shield, below a crown) or possibly of Prince Francesco Maria Barberini. The third (bottom left) is an official Roman seal (it shows the Colosseum) and has a fragmentary inscription: ‘… IO DELLE ANTICHITÀ E PITTURA … [O] [?]RE PER [L] [?]A [PITTURA] [?]’ ([Office] of antiquities and painting [Inspector] of painting). This was probably an export stamp. Similar seals are found on all the ex‐Camuccini pictures still at Alnwick Castle.

Materials and technique

The whole panel was prepared for painting with a gesso ground and off‐white oil priming (fig. 2). The priming layer comprises a mix of lead white and a little lead‐tin yellow, with powdered glass (soda‐lime containing manganese). The painted area does not extend to the edges, leaving an unpainted border of between 0.1 and 0.6 cm.

The binding medium was identified as heat‐bodied walnut oil by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis of paint samples from the blue of the sky and the yellowish‐brown bench on which the Virgin sits. The binding medium of the priming layer was also found to be heat‐bodied walnut oil.

Only a very limited number of samples have been taken for pigment analysis (from the extreme edges of the painted surface). The blue sky to the right is painted in natural ultramarine mixed with white, and the same pigment forms the deepest blue surface paint of the Virgin’s blue drapery, over an underlayer containing mineral azurite. The greenish‐blue azurite underlayer is visible in the shadows of the drapery. Azurite mixed with red lake, white and a little black was employed to create the purplish‐grey tones of the Virgin’s dress.

The curtain was originally purple (fig. 3), as demonstrated by the discovery of red lake and azurite beneath the left‐hand side of the curtain, which was subsequently modified to the deep green that is visible today.

The main yellow pigment found in the painting is lead‐tin yellow, which occurs in the bench as well as the Virgin’s yellow/green sleeve and yellow drapery. The same pigment is a component of the green paints of the curtain and the distant landscape where it is combined with mineral malachite and verdigris.

The deeper shadows in the sleeve of the Virgin’s shirt, the laced tie on her sleeve and the shadows in the area of her belt contain a variety of pigments mixed with an unusual dark grey pigment, with a distinctive sparkling metallic lustre (fig. 4). This appears to be powdered metallic bismuth and is also found in the Procession to Calvary (NG2919), and in the Ansidei Madonna (NG1171).

The flesh paints are solidly modelled apparently using lead white and vermilion. The technique is comparable with the flesh painting in the Dream of a Knight (NG213) and, on a larger scale, the Saint Catherine of Alexandria (NG168).

Shell gold (powdered metallic gold pigment) was employed for the haloes of the two figures, and touches were also used on the Virgin’s belt.

Condition and conservation

A discoloured varnish covered the painting when it was rediscovered in 1991. This was removed when the picture was cleaned by Herbert Lank in October to November of that year, who noted that it had survived in exceptionally good condition.³ There are a few minor retouchings along the splits in the lower part of the picture and to several small paint losses, for example on the Virgin’s neck and the back of her right hand, the child’s forehead and the area of the Virgin’s cloak near the child’s outstretched arm. There has also been some retouching of the tiny pitted depressions on the right leg and lower torso of the child where the depressions had filled with dirt and the residue of old varnishes.

The picture’s exceptional condition has been commented on since the early nineteenth century. Vincenzo Camuccini’s inventory described the picture as ‘conservatissimo’,⁴ Tito Barberi referred to it as perfectly preserved,⁵ and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle noted its ‘perfetto conservazione’.⁶ It seems to be the case that the picture was glazed for much of its history, which might explain its state of preservation (see further under ‘Framing’ below). However, Johann David Passavant, surprisingly, noted the picture as having discoloured retouchings and, as discussed under ‘Style’ below, some writers were put off by the picture’s original coloration.⁷

Underdrawing⁸

Infrared reflectography reveals an extensive underdrawing for the composition (fig. 5). This was executed in a dry material, identified as leadpoint, an alloy of lead and tin used as a drawing material. It is on top of the priming and can be seen at the left edge where a line for the curtain extends beyond the painted surface (fig. 2).

The leadpoint underdrawing shows the figures in great detail. The curtain and landscape are also drawn but less fully. There is no sign of pouncing and the design does not appear to have been traced. It was apparently drawn freehand, probably with reference to a preparatory drawing. Raphael’s interest in geometric forms can be seen in the sweeping curves drawn to position the upper body of the Virgin and create the curves of her breast. These drawn lines can also be compared to a metalpoint drawing of 1507 in Vienna (fig. 6). Raphael then fleshed out the composition more carefully, defining the outlines several times, describing details – such as the intricate braiding of the Virgin’s hair – more attentively, and indicating areas of shadow with passages of hatching. He followed the underdrawing closely when it came to painting. It is typical of Raphael’s underdrawings to find characteristic curves around the knuckles, as in the child’s hands, and to add extensive parallel hatching to indicate shadows, for example in the child’s head and the neck and chest of the Virgin. The underdrawing shows Raphael working out how he would arrange the figures in the space, but once this was decided no significant changes were made during painting. In the landscape, however, a small building with a pitched roof and spire was drawn at the crest of the hill; a distant blue hill was painted where a tall tree was underdrawn a little way down the hill, but then rocks and a tower were painted over the distant hill and at the top of the hill the small building was replaced by the substantial, square, crenellated tower we see now.

Subject and description

The painting is now known as the Madonna of the Pinks after the flowers that she holds, and the other titles by which it has been known (Vierge à l’Oeillet, Madonna mit der Nelke, Madonna del Garofano or Madonna dei Garofani, Madonna with a Carnation) are all variants of this title. It depicts two haloed figures (the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child) sitting on a simple wooden bench in a dark room, probably identifiable as a bedchamber by the green curtain gathered up at the left. The picture is lit from an unseen opening or light source at the upper left, and there is also an open arch‐topped window to the right, which looks out over a landscape view that includes a tower, other ruins and trees atop a small hill. There is a small chip in the grey stone window ledge, and the column that flanks the window has an Ionic capital. The seated Virgin Mary is seen three‐quarter length, gazing lovingly at her son and with her mouth slightly open in what appears to be an expression of enraptured wonder, perhaps imbued with foreknowledge of his destiny on the Cross. She has a blue cloak with a yellow lining, which covers her legs but has dropped from her right shoulder (the cloak is also visible between the two figures); beneath this she wears a white undershirt, and a cool purplish‐grey blouse with pale yellow sleeves. The blouse has a trim along the neckline that is a similar pale yellow in the highlights, but green as it gathers in the shadows on her chest, where it fastens at various points before it coincides with a thin green belt. Her hair is partially braided and coiled behind her head. A thin gauze veil covers most of her hair and her right ear, and trails onto her exposed shoulder; on the right it appears to be tucked into the edge of the blue cloak that covers her left shoulder.

In her right hand the Virgin holds a single stem of pinks (or carnations) with two flowers; her left hand holds two further stems with three flowers (one of which is only half visible at the edge of the painted area). Pinks were known in Greek as dianthus (‘flower of God’), and were a traditional symbol of divine love and healing. The carnation was also a widely recognised symbol of Christ’s future Passion, its red flowers being associated with his blood and its five petals with the wounds inflicted at the Crucifixion. The Italian for carnation is garofano and there is a further link with Christ’s Passion since cloves are known as chiodi di garofano and associated with the nails (chiodi) with which Christ was crucified. The naked infant sits on a soft white pillow on his mother’s lap. He appears captivated by the flowers, which he takes from his mother. While the flowers symbolise his future Passion, they have also been interpreted as alluding to the Virgin Mary as the Bride of Christ. This interpretation followed from the Old Testament book of Canticles, or the Song of Songs, in which the divine bridegroom (thought to represent Christ) is joyfully united with his heavenly bride (seen as the Virgin, and by extension the Church). This subtle reference to the Song of Songs was clearly in the mind of Jean Couvay (see under ‘Prints’ below), who used a verse from the Song of Songs (‘Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi’: ‘My beloved is mine and I am his’) as the title for his engraving of about 1670. This iconographic interpretation has been cited in support of the proposal that the painting was commissioned by a virtuous widow who symbolically espoused Christ by taking religious vows on becoming a nun.

Patron

Several interdependent nineteenth‐century sources state that the Madonna of the Pinks was painted for Maddalena degli Oddi, a member of a prominent Perugian family. The first was Vincenzo Camuccini in an inventory of the 1830s (referring to the putative patron as ‘Mad.a degli Oddi Baglioni’) and the second was Tito Barberi’s catalogue of the Camuccini collection, which dates to the 1850s, followed by Jean‐Germain‐Désiré Armengaud.⁹ Both refer to Maddalena as a nun, but very little is known about her today. The daughter of Guido degli Oddi (d. 1461)¹⁰ and his wife Giovanna, Maddalena degli Oddi married Armanno Francesco degli Armanni (d. 1481), in about 1462.¹¹ It has been suggested that she might have become a nun after her husband’s death, but this is undocumented. A family history described Maddalena as ‘donna di rare virtù ed amante delle arti belle che protesse, e fu intima di Raffaello’ (‘a woman of rare virtue and a lover of the arts, who protected and was close to Raphael’), and in 1490 she was named as her mother’s universal heir, which gave her the means to commission works of art.¹² Maddalena was identified as the patron of Raphael’s Coronation of the Virgin in the church of S. Francesco al Prato, Perugia (now Musei Vaticani, Rome) by Giorgio Vasari, although her sister‐in‐law, Alessandra, is now generally believed to have been the patron of Raphael’s altarpiece.¹³ Francesco Longhena also referred to an undated letter of Raphael, then – or until recently – in the possession of Cardinal Stefano Borgia (1731–1804) who had acquired it from a Perugian source, in which Raphael, writing to a friend, says that he ‘aveva da terminare un quadro per donna Maddalena degli Oddi, la quale era donna potente, e che poteva ad esso procurare dei lavori’ (‘he had finished a painting for lady Maddalena degli Oddi, who was a powerful woman who could procure other work for him’); the painting in question is the Coronation of the Virgin (now Musei Vaticani, Rome).¹⁴ This reference probably informed or inspired Camuccini’s original reference to her,¹⁵ and Pier Ludovico Puddu has suggested Camuccini’s information resulted from his contact with the Baglioni in the period 1806–16, and that his introduction of a Baglioni suffix into Maddalena’s name was a confusion born of the marriage between these two families that had occurred in 1782. On balance, there is nothing solid that offers support to the idea that Maddalena degli Oddi was the patron of the Madonna of the Pinks.

Sheryl Reiss has recently proposed that the picture should instead be identified with ‘la nostra donna dela profetessa’ (‘Our Lady of the Prefettessa’) recorded in a letter that Raphael wrote to his uncle in April 1508.¹⁶ It is widely accepted that the artist was referring to Giovanna Feltria della Rovere (1463–1513), who was often referred to as the ‘Prefettessa’ or ‘Praefectissa’ because she was the widow of Giovanni della Rovere (1457–1501, Pope Julius II’s brother) who had been Prefect of Rome. As the daughter of Duke Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482) and mother of Francesco Maria I della Rovere (1490–1538, Duke of Urbino, 1508–38) Giovanna was the pivotal figure at the court of Urbino. Raphael’s letter of 1508 discusses his ongoing work for the court in Urbino and asks his uncle, Bartolomeo Santi (d. about 1517), to send him a panel that was the cover for this already extant Madonna, presumably for him to paint it. That Raphael was particularly indebted to this patron and supporter is beyond doubt (she was the author of a famous if sometimes disputed letter of introduction written for Raphael in October 1504), and Reiss argues that the exquisite level of finish points to a major patron and potentially to the tastes of a court setting. She also relates the sottile e minuto style/facture and the Ionic capital of the column that flanks the window to female patronage.¹⁷ It should be admitted, however, that none of this is conclusive proof, even if early knowledge of the picture in Urbino (see under ‘Provenance’ and ‘Copies and Variants’ below) might support the proposal.

Dating

The picture is undated, but its date is not controversial and it can be placed with confidence in the years 1506–7.¹⁸

Nicholas Penny argued for a date 1507–8, and Jürg Meyer zur Capellen suggested 1506.¹⁹ Carol Plazzotta and David Ekserdjian have argued for a date of about 1506–7,²⁰ and James Beck correctly recorded the current author’s opinion that ‘he would date it specifically to the winter of 1506–7’.²¹ The reasons for this dating are stylistic, and are also closely linked to the picture’s similarities with the Holy Family with the Lamb (dated 1507; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, no. 296). These two pictures were shown side by side at the National Gallery, London, in 2004–5. Both are deeply influenced by Leonardo da Vinci as well as by Netherlandish painting, and the two panels are on a similar scale (Madonna of the Pinks: 28.8 × 22.9 cm; Holy Family with the Lamb: 32 × 22 cm). Although the Virgin is more traditionally dressed in the Madrid painting, specific similarities can be found in the combination of the different yellows used, and especially in the morphology of the children with large flat feet, pudgy cheeks and thick necks. Comparison can also be made with Raphael’s Orléans Madonna (oil on wood, 31.7 × 23.3 cm, Musée Condé, Chantilly), which is sometimes dated 1507 with reference to a letter from Martino Spanzotti to the Duke of Savoy.²²

A seventeenth‐century copy after a compositional variant in the collection of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton House, Salisbury, Wiltshire (the Pembroke Madonna), bears an unreliable signature and a date of 1508, which is sometimes taken as a terminus ante quem for the composition of the Madonna of the Pinks.²³ Armengaud dated the Madonna of the Pinks to slightly earlier than the Belle Jardinière (signed and dated 1508; Musée du Louvre, Paris).²⁴

In 2017 Achim Gnann (apparently following Konrad Oberhuber)²⁵ suggested that the Madonna of the Pinks was painted in Rome (that is, not before mid‐1508),²⁶ but now accepts that ‘the dating in the Florentine period is fine’.²⁷ Oskar Fischel also grouped the composition with early Roman Madonnas.²⁸

Those who reject the attribution to Raphael, for example Beck, maintain that the picture was painted by Vincenzo Camuccini in the early nineteenth century.²⁹

Attribution

Raphael’s composition was celebrated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, judging from the numerous early copies and prints that were made after it (further discussed under the respective sections (a, b) below), and it has almost always been accepted that an original painted by Raphael exists (or existed).³⁰ Discussion of the present picture’s status as that original is intimately related to its passage through various collections (see under ‘Previous owners’ below) and can be summarised as follows. It was thought to be by Raphael, and prized as such, when in the Barberini collection (1640–1812/14), although it should be acknowledged that references to the picture in these years were essentially for internal inventory/identification purposes, even if the status was asserted by authorities such as Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), who was recognised as an expert on Raphael. After the picture’s acquisition in Rome by the Camuccini family (in whose collection it remained until 1856), the new owners also valued the picture highly and as Raphael’s original (with two exceptions, which were apparently deliberate attempts to play down its value or importance so as to maintain a free hand regarding its future; see further below).³¹ This period coincided with the birth of Raphael scholarship and created an alternative thread of discussion in which scholars and connoisseurs (as well as owners and their employees) expressed views regarding the picture’s authenticity, usually in comparison to other versions of the composition. Longhena, Constantin and Burckhardt advocated the picture as Raphael’s original, while Passavant and Platner dismissed it as a copy. These opinions follow here in chronological order. In 1829 the picture was described in the Camuccini collection by Quatremère de Quincy’s Italian translator Francesco Longhena (1796–1864) in his Istoria della vita e delle opere di Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino as another ‘cimelio del divino Sanzio’ (‘treasure of the divine Sanzio’),³² and the picture was also studied in Rome in 1835 by Johann David Passavant (1787–1861).³³ Passavant was an artist and arguably the first modern scholar of Raphael. He lived in Rome from 1817 to 1824, when he apparently saw more than a thousand pictures a week, attempting to visit as many collections as he could.³⁴ Passavant plainly knew the picture from very soon after his arrival in Rome, and in 1818 in one of his reports about paintings that the Städel Administration might acquire he wrote: ‘Der Bruder des Malers Camuccini hat auch ganz vorzügliche Gemälde, welche er wohl geneigt ist zusammen wegzugeben, wenn sie gut bezahlt werden. es sind etliche 40 an der Zahl, worunter eine kleine Madonna mit dem Kinde von Raphael, 2er Manier zur Zeit als er die Grablegung malte, mit dem grössten Fleiſz behandelt u von unbeschreiblicher Lieblichkeit’ (‘The brother of the painter Camuccini also has excellent paintings, which he is quite inclined to give away together if they are well paid for. There are some 40 in number, including a small Madonna with the Child by Raphael, second style at the time he painted the Entombment, treated with the greatest diligence and of indescribable loveliness’).³⁵ Following his return to his native Frankfurt, Passavant continued to travel and to write, culminating in his Kunstreise durch England und Belgien (1833; translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake as Tour of a German Artist in England, 1836) and most significantly his monograph on Raphael and Giovanni Santi, which was published in German in 1839 (as two volumes with a third following in 1858);³⁶ an edition in French followed in 1860 and an English translation in 1872. Although the notes that Passavant made in 1818 and 1835 were responsive to the picture’s tenderness, and apparently accepted the attribution, in 1839 he described the picture as among the best versions of a lost original by Raphael, attributing it to the school of Raphael (‘aus der Schule Rafael’s’).³⁷ He published a list of 10 painted copies in 1839 (and he also listed engravings); he added three more paintings and a print in 1858.³⁸ Just before he died, a French edition of Passavant’s monograph was published, and on this occasion a dubious version at Lucca was discussed ahead of the Camuccini picture (by this point in fact in England), although Passavant made it clear that he had not seen the picture in Lucca in person.³⁹ It is immediately evident how Passavant’s knowledge of several versions of the composition fed into Barberi’s description of the Camuccini picture,⁴⁰ but given how astute was ‘Old Passy’ (as Lady Eastlake called him), the discrepancy of his comments on the Madonna of the Pinks do require explanation.

The authenticity of the Camuccini version was, perhaps pointedly, upheld by the Swiss enamel painter Abraham Constantin (1785–1855) in his Idées italiennes sur quelques tableaux célèbres (1840).⁴¹ Constantin was a well‐recognised expert who had spent 1,560 hours studying the Transfiguration.⁴² The Idées are usually regarded as having been ghostwritten by Stendhal (1783–1842), who described Constantin as ‘l’homme de ce temps qui a mieux connu Raphaël’ (‘the man of our day who best knows Raphael’), and one can see how an enamel painter might have been particularly attracted to the scale and finish of the Madonna of the Pinks.⁴³ In 1842, however, Ernst Platner (1773–1855), a German painter resident in Rome, described the Madonna of the Pinks when it was still in the Camuccini collection in the Palazzetto Mondragone in Piazza Borghese, rejecting the attribution to Raphael.⁴⁴ But it was instead defended as Raphael’s original by Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) in 1855, and described as generally accepted by Robert Bussler in 1861.⁴⁵

Following the picture’s sale (as a highly priced original) to the Duke of Northumberland in 1856, a similar pattern can be observed, at least at first. The owners prized it as by Raphael, commissioning an ornate frame that proclaimed this, and recording it as a ‘celebrated’ picture by Raphael in a guide to the collection published in 1865.⁴⁶ Scholars continued to be divided, with Gustav Friedrich Waagen apparently supporting the attribution, while Lady Eastlake, Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, and Bernard Berenson rejected it.⁴⁷ Taken together these were powerful voices, and the picture was removed in the later nineteenth century to a corridor at Alnwick Castle where it was subsequently overlooked and remained largely undiscussed for most of the twentieth century.⁴⁸ Reference to the composition in this period was usually made with regard to other versions, such as the version formerly in the Spada collection, Lucca.

In 1963 the picture was shown at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle. Francis Russell recalled that Ralph Holland (1917–2012), a well‐known collector of drawings who taught at the University of Newcastle and who selected the exhibition, realised before the exhibition that the painting was by Raphael and wrote to Cecil Gould (1918–1994), then Curator of Italian Paintings at the National Gallery, to alert him to this. Gould dismissed the attribution to Raphael and Holland then proceeded to describe the picture as ‘After Raphael’ and ‘certainly a contemporary work close in spirit to the original’, but in later conversation recalled that he had thought at the time it was by Raphael.⁴⁹

Everything changed with Nicholas Penny’s visit to Alnwick Castle in May 1991. Initially attracted by the frame, he quickly realised that the painting was of very high quality and initiated a train of events (discussed below) that saw the picture being sent to the National Gallery for examination, and its subsequent publication by Penny as Raphael’s rediscovered original.⁵⁰ His attribution has subsequently been endorsed by the vast majority of Raphael scholars,⁵¹ and supported by scientific investigation of the underdrawing and the pigments, which are typical of Raphael’s pre‐Roman productions.⁵²

In his 2006 study of the picture and of the controversy surrounding its acquisition, James Beck (1930–2007), an American art historian, attributed the painting to the Roman neoclassical painter (and collector and dealer), Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844).⁵³ Beck attacked attribution by consensus and the vested interests of institutions, their staff and supporters when defending (apparently controversial) attributions.⁵⁴ He described a symposium held at the National Gallery in November 2002, listing those present (including the author of this catalogue entry) and those who subsequently put their names to a letter published in The Times on 24 September 2003 (again including the author of this catalogue entry).⁵⁵ These are all fair points, but it should be noted that Beck made a career out of high‐profile issues, including restoration and acquisition policy (for example, regarding the Sistine Chapel ceiling or the attribution to Duccio of the Stoclet Madonna now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York). Each of the 20 objections to the attribution of the Madonna of the Pinks to Raphael that he raises can be addressed, but the underlying point of his short book remains the same, which is that the picture is somewhat unusual and needs explanation in order to be fitted into Raphael’s production.⁵⁶ Each of the various sections of this catalogue entry contains elements that have a bearing on this argument and the case in favour of the attribution was effectively made by Penny in 1992. In summary, the arguments that are most persuasive can be reduced to the following. NG6596 is an extremely high‐quality version of the composition, far outstripping any of the other versions that are known. Its support, materials and technique are all consonant with Raphael’s activity. The detection of a small pentimento on the horizon would also be highly unusual in a copy. The most subjective responses to the picture are necessarily those that take account of its quality, date and style, but for this writer these are also the most convincing arguments in favour of an attribution to Raphael. As argued above, the picture probably dates to a short period in late 1506/early 1507, and so to a very specific moment in the artist’s development, where the closest comparator on a very similar scale is the highly Leonardesque Holy Family with the Lamb in Madrid.

Jan Sammer and Ingrid Schade‐Schlieder have also undertaken extensive research into the history of the composition. The former adduces various arguments to support his rejection of the attribution to Raphael.⁵⁷ The latter does not venture an opinion.⁵⁸

Style

The most distinctive feature of the picture’s style is its palette, which is much cooler than preceding pictures by Raphael but also more brightly lit than later pictures, where a lighter palette is frequently achieved through the employment of a suffused lighting. Some commentators have been put off by this unusual coloration, and Cavalcaselle described its colour as ‘particolare’ and commented on its ‘maniera chiara, fredda’.⁵⁹ These unexpected qualities would later feed into doubts about the picture’s authenticity, but this unusual palette can be explained as an experimental moment in Raphael’s career around 1506–7 when he was first exposed to Leonardo’s art and before he had fully absorbed its lessons into his (more mature) style.

The contrast between light and shadow points to two stylistic influences in the picture: familiarity with Netherlandish paintings as well as with Leonardo’s Benois Madonna. The minute handling, and details such as the knotted bed‐curtain, the view through the window with its illusionistic chip in the sill and the shape of the Virgin’s brow, suggest Raphael’s awareness of Northern European prototypes, including paintings by Hans Memling, Jan Van Eyck or Gerard David that he had presumably encountered in Urbino, and perhaps in Florence. It was in the latter city that Raphael demonstrably befriended Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael’s composition is closely based on Leonardo’s Benois Madonna (fig. 7), which is usually dated to the late 1470s and is now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. The lively interaction of the figures, which is constructed around the child and his mother’s shared fascination with a stem of carnations (and which in both pictures is particularly focused upon the interplay of the figures’ hands), establishes the connection between the compositions; Raphael also adopted the dark setting with a window offset to the right, as well as the foreground lighting and Leonardo’s cool palette. The presumption is that Raphael was able to see Leonardo’s picture in a Florentine private collection no later than 1506.

Versions and copies are considered below, but it is also important to acknowledge the existence of variants. Paul Joannides discussed the Pembroke Madonna (referred to under ‘Dating’ above) in an article of 2004, and the existence of such a prototype by Raphael is strongly suggested by a copy drawing published at that time (Florence, GDSU – Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Gallerie degli Uffizi, 1327F).⁶⁰

Drawings

No drawings made solely for the Madonna of the Pinks have been identified. The closest connections are found on the verso of a drawing for the Bridgewater Madonna in Vienna (fig. 8).⁶¹ The metalpoint on the recto of this sheet can be compared to the underdrawing of the Madonna of the Pinks, especially the quickly sketched intersecting ovals that define the child’s leg, while on the verso of the sheet, Raphael set down a series of ideas for Madonna and Child compositions. These were almost certainly drawn without reference to a model and the pen sketches to the right seem to be indirectly related to the Madonna of the Pinks and show the Virgin and Child holding cut flowers. These sketches were probably ruminations on a theme rather than preparatory drawings as such, and the argument for dating this sheet to about 1507 depends on the dating of the Bridgewater Madonna (arguably about 1507–8; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh).

Aidan Weston‐Lewis pointed out a connection between the sketch of the head of a child on a metalpoint drawing from the so‐called ‘Pink Sketchbook’ in the Cleveland Museum of Art and the head of the Christ Child in the Madonna of the Pinks, but concluded that the Cleveland drawing is probably a later recollection of an earlier motif.⁶²

Copies and variants

There are almost countless copies of the Madonna of the Pinks. As early as 1839 Passavant was able to publish a list of 13 painted copies, and he added three more in 1858.⁶³ Controversy regarding the identification of the original has encouraged several studies of these multiple copies, and the compilation of lists of copies.⁶⁴ In addition, 92 copies are listed, and in most cases illustrated, on The Raphael Research Resource.⁶⁵ The list that follows refers to these catalogues (Schade‐Schlieder 2009 and Sammer 2021 references have been added) but is based on The Raphael Research Resource in order (left to right, line 1 to line 10). Further below is a list of pictures that are not on The Raphael Research Resource but which are discussed by these two scholars. Given the extent to which pictures have moved around it is possible that some duplication below has been missed, but where it has been noted by the present author, that is recorded or corrected. All are ‘After Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks’, unless stated otherwise.

• • 1. Dijon, Musée des Beaux‐Arts, cat. 26, oil on copper, 29 × 22 cm (attributed to Garofalo, date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 11 and Sammer 2021, no. 29).
  • 2. Zurich, Koller Auktionen AG, 26 March 2010, lot 3091, oil on canvas, 93 × 74 cm (Marquard Wocher (1760–1830), 1822, signed and dated ‘Nach Raphael Santio copiert von Marquard Wocher in Basel im Jahr 1822’) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 81a and Sammer 2021, no. 56).
  • 3. Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF 341, oil on panel, 28.3 × 22.7 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 42 and Sammer 2021, no. 37).
  • 4. Rome, Villa Albani (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 48 and Sammer 2021, no. 23).
  • 5. Boston, Athenaeum, oil on canvas, 31.3 × 23.2 cm (anon., French, eighteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 66 and Sammer 2021, no. 66).
  • 6. Bath, The Holburne Museum of Art, HOL32780, oil on panel, 40 × 30 cm (anon., Flemish, seventeenth or eighteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 2).
  • 7. Private collection, wood, 27.9 × 21.6 cm (attributed to Garofalo, date unknown).
  • 8. Rome, Girolamo Bombelli collection at Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e Documentazione, no. E78351 (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 61).
  • 9. London, Christie’s, 25 March 1927, lot 25, probably oil on panel, 27.9 × 21.6 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 32; see also no. 89 below in this list).
  • 10. Craches, near Rambouillet, church of Notre‐Dame de la Crèche et Saint Gorgon, oil on panel, about 105 × 76 cm (anon., Italy, sixteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 9 and Sammer 2021, no. 51).
• (line 2)
  • 11. Châlons‐en‐Champagne, Musée Garinet, 899‐11‐235, oil on panel, 29.5 × 23 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 9 and Sammer 2021, no. 64).
  • 12. Corsham, Wiltshire, Corsham Court, watercolour, 29.2 × 22.9 cm (anon., 1830s) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 8).
  • 13. Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of James E. Scripps, 89.25, oil on canvas, 74.6 × 59.7 cm (Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 54).
  • 14. Paris, Drouot, 25 March 1909 (collection of the industrialist Luglien‐Leroy), 29.1 × 23.7 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 38 and Sammer 2021, no. 35).
  • 15. Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 18 July 2007, lot 27, oil on canvas, 33.5 × 25 cm (anon., eighteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 71).
  • 16. Formerly in the Earl of Dudley collection, subsequently in that of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, Baronet of Blackhall, wood, 27.9 × 21.6 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 69 and Sammer 2021, no. 65).
  • 17. Milan, P. Foresti da Carpi collection, sold at auction, 12 May 1913, wood (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 28).
  • 18. Florence, Gallori‐Turchi Gallery, copper (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 74).
  • 19. Genoa, private collection (anon., date unknown).
  • 20. Hamburg, private collection, oil on panel, 37.1 × 29.4 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 17 and Sammer 2021, no. 22).
• (line 3)
  • 21. Switzerland, private collection (Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 55).
  • 22. Zurich, private collection, oil on panel, 28.2 × 22.8 cm (anon., date unknown) (perhaps Sammer 2021, no. 20).
  • 23. Italy, private collection, oil on canvas, 31.9 × 25.8 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 24. Hamburg, A.T. Jaffé collection, 30 × 24 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 25. Jerusalem, Israel Museum, oil on canvas, 29 × 25 cm (anon.; now given to Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 62 and Sammer 2021, no. 58).
  • 26. Paris, Lise Graf Gallery (1981, subsequently in Saint‐Paul‐de‐Vence), copper, 29 × 24 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 41 and Sammer 2021, no. 36).
  • 27. Loreto, Tesoro di Santa Casa, oil on canvas, 37 × 32 cm (anon., Emilia Romagna, sixteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 25 and Sammer 2021, no. 69).
  • 28. Zurich, private collection, tempera and oil on walnut, 28.5 × 21.4 cm (anon., early sixteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 55).
  • 29. Loreto, Archive of the Palazzo Apostolico, oil on canvas, 75 × 55 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 24).
• (line 4)
  • 30. New Hampshire, private collection, probably oil on canvas, 30.7 × 25.4 cm (anon., date unknown) (apparently the same as Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 70 and Sammer 2021, no. 24; see also no. 57 below in this list).
  • 31. Oneonta, New York, St James Episcopal church, 80 × 60 cm (Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 37 and Sammer 2021, no. 57).
  • 32. Urbino, private collection, oil on copper, 24 × 18 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 33. Paris, Artus Associés, 2 July 2004, lot 4bis, copper, 30 × 23 cm (anon., French, seventeenth century).
  • 34. Niel Rimington collection, probably oil on panel, 27.9 × 21.6 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 35. Paris, Félix Lachovski, wood, 27.9 × 21.6 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 36. Milan, Fausti, 12 May 1913, lot 68 (anon., date unknown).
  • 37. Lulworth Manor, Joseph Weld collection, copper, 29.2 × 23.5 cm (anon., date unknown), (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 27 and Sammer 2021, no. 11).
  • 38. London, Christie’s, 29 September 1963, lot 37, probably oil on panel, 29.2 × 23.5 cm (Baroccio, date unknown).
  • 39. Rome, Christie’s, 25 May and 1 June 1999, lot 648, oil on panel, 65 × 44 cm (anon., Flemish, seventeenth century).
• (line 5)
  • 40. Germany, Siegfried Kuhnke GmbH (anon., date unknown) (correspondence dating from 2003 in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 41. Xativa (close to Valencia), Museo Municipal, Madonna of the Rosary, oil on panel, 36.8 × 25 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 42. Switzerland, private collection, 65 × 45 cm (anon., date unknown) (correspondence dating from 2005 in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 43. North Yorkshire, private collection, probably oil on panel, 45.7 × 39.4 cm, (anon., date unknown) (correspondence in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 44. Near Aberdeen, Louise Napier collection (anon., date unknown) (correspondence in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 45. Nice, Elisabeth Blondet collection (anon., date unknown) (correspondence in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 46. Christie’s (anon., date unknown) (photograph in the NGA , dossier for NG6596, inscribed on reverse ‘Christie’s Old Masters paintings’).
  • 47. Anon., date unknown (photograph in the NGA , dossier for NG6596, attached paper inscribed ‘Raphael / Volt / Sept 96’).
  • 48. New York, Sotheby’s, 14 October 1992, lot 26, oil on canvas, 54.6 × 41.9 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 34).
  • 49. Olympia, Sotheby’s, 5 July 2005, lot 425, oil on copper, 30 × 23 cm (anon., eighteenth century) (sold for £2,040, according to information accompanying the photograph in the NGA , dossier for NG6596) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 73).
• (line 6)
  • 50. New York, Christie’s, 11/01/1989, lot 29A, oil on panel, 29.2 × 23.5 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 31).
  • 51. London, Sotheby’s, 28 October 1999, lot 27, oil on panel, 27.3 × 23 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 23).
  • 52. Olympia, Sotheby’s, 30 October 2003, lot 15, oil on canvas, 46.4 × 36.9 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 127).
  • 53. Paris, Delvaux, 15 December 2006, lot 91, probably oil on canvas, 100 × 74 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 54. Paris, Hôtel Dassault, 21 October, 2006, lot 1, oil on panel, 28 × 22.2 cm (anon., Italian, late sixteenth century) (sold for €2,800, according to annotated cutting of sale catalogue in the NGA , dossier for NG6596).
  • 55. Cologne, Lempertz, 17 May 2003, lot 112, oil on canvas, 30 × 24 cm (anon., date unknown), (sold for €9,000, according to annotated cutting of sale catalogue in the NGA , dossier for NG6596) (see Sammer 2021, no. 31).
  • 56. Brescia, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, 128, oil on panel, 30.5 × 23.5 cm (anon., Flemish, sixteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 5 and Sammer 2021, no. 12).
  • 57. New York, Christie’s, 4–5 September 2002, lot 232; now New Hampshire, private collection, oil on canvas, 31 × 25.4 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 70 and Sammer 2021, no. 24).
• (line 7)
  • 58. Cologne, Lempertz, 15 May 2002, lot 918, oil on panel, 27.2 × 23 cm (anon., date unknown), (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 20 and Sammer 2021, no. 70).
  • 59. South Kensington, Christie’s, 14 April 1999, lot 78, oil on panel, 28.5 × 21.3 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 60. Lucca, Count of Spada; formerly at Glen Head (da Navarro collection), sold New York 2016, probably oil on panel, 28.5 × 22.7 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 26 and Sammer 2021, no. 44).
  • 61. Paris, Atena Gallery, in 2006 (previous sale: Christie’s, 27 March 1925, lot 131), oil on copper, 30 × 23.1 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 75 and Sammer 2021, no. 30).
  • 62. London, private collection, oil (untested) on poplar, 43.1 cm × 33.1 cm (including the additional wood strips attached to both of the long sides of the painting; width excluding these strips is 32 cm) (anon., eighteenth century).
  • 63. Perugia, Casa Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello, oil on copper, 23 × 18 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 76 and Sammer 2021, no. 49).
• (line 8)
  • 64. Côte d’Or, France, parish church of St Pierre in Pommard, oil on canvas, 160 × 120 cm (anon., seventeenth/eighteenth century) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 45 and Sammer 2021, no. 62).
  • 65. Bologna, Francesco Molinari‐Pradelli collection, oil on canvas, 29.5 × 23.5 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 68).
  • 66. Rome, After Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks, photograph from the collection of Girolamo Bombelli at Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e Documentazione, no. E113435 (attributed to Bartolomeo Ramenghi, date unknown).
  • 67. Leipzig, Speck von Sterburg collection, oil on wood, 29.5 × 23.5 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 19 and Sammer 2021, no. 40).
  • 68. Stockholm, collection of Mrs Johannes Norberg (sold by the Bukowski auction house, Stockholm, 9–12 November 1966, lot 173), probably oil on canvas, 30.5 × 22 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 51 and Sammer 2021, no. 34; see also no. 83 below in this list).
  • 69. Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preuſzischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Dep. 21 FV, oil on panel, 52 × 41.5 cm (anon., date unknown).
  • 70. Spain, private collection (anon., date unknown).
  • 71. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini), 1050, oil on panel, 28.5 × 23 cm (Barocci, date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 47 and Sammer 2021, no. 19).
  • 72. Virreinato, Mexico, Museo Nacional (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 64 and Sammer 2021, no. 39).
  • 73. Vienna, Dorotheum, Brunsvik Sale, 25 November 1902, probably oil on canvas, 24 × 30 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 52 and Sammer 2021, no. 42).
• (line 9)
  • 74. Althena, Thomee collection (Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 60).
  • 75. Attributed to Garofalo, date unknown.
  • 76. Attributed to Garofalo, date unknown.
  • 77. Florence, A. Gottschewski (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 14).
  • 78. Detroit, USA, 74.9 × 60.3 cm (Sassoferrato, date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 10 and Sammer 2021, no. 54, also above).
  • 79. New York, P.J. Higgs (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 32).
  • 80. Anon., date unknown, 37 × 25 cm.
  • 81. Calendar House, Falkirk, Major Forbes, sold October 1963 (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 13 and Sammer 2021, no. 48).
  • 82. Florence, private collection (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 15 and Sammer 2021, no. 26).
• (line 10)
  • 83. Stockholm, Mrs J. Norberg, probably oil on canvas, 30.5 × 22 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 34).
  • 84. Boston, F. Lachovski, 2004 (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 33 and Sammer 2021, no. 28). The same picture is listed above (see no. 35) when in the Félix Lachovski collection, Paris. The photograph in the Witt collection states that it had been certified by Oskar Fischel and Adolfo Venturi; it was referred to by Penny 1992 but missed by Sammer 2021.
  • 85. Anon., date unknown.
  • 86. Berlin, Jaffe Sale, Lepke, October 1912, probably oil on panel, 30 × 24 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 3).
  • 87. Bilbao, J.M. de Urquijo collection (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 4 and Sammer 2021, no. 45).
  • 88. Stockholm, Bukowski, 9–12 November 1966, lot 173 (anon., date unknown) (see Sammer 2021, no. 34).
  • 89. London, Christie’s, Samuel Sale, 25 March 1927 (anon. date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 22 and Sammer 2021, no. 32; see also no. 9 above in this list).
  • 90. Versailles, Palais de Congrès, 18 November 1979, lot 5, 40.5 × 33 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 43 and Sammer 2021, no. 61).
  • 91. Würzburg, Martin‐von‐Wagner‐Museum, oil on panel, 31 × 21.4 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 53 and Sammer 2021, no. 33).
  • 92. Zagreb, Strossmayer Gallery, oil on copper, 35 × 24.5 cm (anon., date unknown) (see Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 54 and Sammer 2021, no. 25).

The catalogue in Schade‐Schlieder 2009 also includes the following: nos 6 (Buenos Aires), 16, (Pescetto), 18 (Cologne), 21 (Phillips), 29 (Mulhausen), 30 (Schmidt‐Degenhart, Munich = Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 30), 35 (Nice), 36 (Oldenburg), 39 (Paris), 40 (Paris, Coatelem), 44 (Pau), 46 (Witt), 50 (Stockholm, Nationalsmuseum, no. 193), 55 (Zurich, Bender), 56 (Zurich, 1912), 57 (Zurich, private collection), 58 (Milan), 59 (Berlin), 60 (Bagnacavallo), 63 (Italy, private collection), 65 (Italy, private collection), 67 (Spain, private collection, Ruiz Manero), 72 (Basel), 77, 78 (Vienna, sale 2008), 79 (Auch), 126 (Swiss private collection), 128 (Bonhams 2007), 129 (Christie’s South Kensington 2 December 2008), 130 (Lempertz).

The catalogue in Sammer 2021 also includes the following: nos 10 (Blatchford), 15 (Eggers at Copenhagen, Thorvaldsen Museum), 27 (Schmidt‐Degenhart, Munich = Schade‐Schlieder 2009, no. 30), 38 (Sicily), 46, 50, 52, 59, 67, 68, 71, 72.

A copy sold at Mallams, London, can be added to the list above.⁶⁶

Some further comment can be offered on this extraordinary list of copies. A large number are French, and support the idea that the picture was in France for a period. A smaller number are Italian, and most likely earlier. Another large number were made in the early nineteenth century, especially during the period of about 40 years when the painting was in the Camuccini collection, for example, Marquard Wocher’s copy, which was dated 1822. To these one can also add the copies that were recorded in the Prussian royal collections.⁶⁷

Drawn and other copies

A partial, but 1:1, copy of the child in red chalk is found in an album of drawings (Libro A) in the Uffizi (GDSU 11530F; 12.4 × 7.2 cm) by Federico Barocci (1535–1612), which can probably be dated 1555–70. As discussed by Luca Baroni, the fact that this is such a precise copy on an identical scale, and could even have been traced from its original model, suggests access either to the original, to a cartoon or to a 1:1 copy, which at this date in Barocci’s career would indicate that the composition was known in Urbino.⁶⁸

A remarkable drawn copy of the Madonna of the Pinks was apparently made in Rome, in 1830–3, by Victor Vibert (1799–1860), shortly before his return to Lyons.⁶⁹ This is now in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Lyons (fig. 9). Vibert did not finish the engraving, which was subsequently completed by F. Chardon Ainé and published in Lyons in 1852 by Auguste Lehman (1822–1872) and Joseph Chevron (1824–1875).⁷⁰

An enamel plaque by Victoire Jaquotot (1772–1855) after Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks and dated 1817 (31.4 × 26.6 cm) is in the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, inv. 16 855.⁷¹ Jaquotot based her enamel on a copy in a French private collection.

Prints

The engravings listed here are placed as far as possible in chronological order. All are ‘After Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks’, unless stated otherwise. See also the list of engravings published by Passavant,⁷² and the ‘Tables des Oeuvres de Raphael Sanctio d’Urbin gravées par les maistres modernes …’, reproduced by Pierre‐Jean Mariette.⁷³

• 1. Anon., sixteenth century.⁷⁴
• 2. Jean Couvay (1605–1675), 33.7 × 25.7 cm. The print probably dates after 1670, and is inscribed: ‘Dilectus meus mihi et ego illi’ (‘My beloved to me and I to him’).⁷⁵
• 3. London, British Museum, 1877,0811.645, Jean Boullanger (1606–1680), published by F. De Poilly (1623–1693), 1645–1680, 44.4 × 30.7 cm. Boulanger probably based his print on Couvay. It is reversed and shows more of the arched window and of the flowers. It is inscribed: ‘Flores mei, fructus, Eccl. 24’ (‘My flowers are the fruit. Ecclesiastes 24’).
• 4. Elias Heinzelmann of Augsburg (1640–1693).
• 5. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, J. Duthé (1788–1841).
• 6. J. Morin.
• 7. A. Povelato, 1780 (probably derived from Boulanger).
• 8. Giovanni Farrugia (1803–1861), 1828, 29.4 × 23.4 cm. Sammer 2016 argues that the first state of the Farrugia engraving did not include the location visible in subsequent states.⁷⁶ Beck argues that there were two versions of the Madonna of the Pinks in the Camuccini collection, NG6596 and the other with a drapery covering Christ’s genitals which formed the basis of Farrugia’s engraving, but in fact the modification of pictures for reasons of modesty in popular reproduction is almost as common as the application of leaves to plaster casts.⁷⁷
• 9. August F. Semmler (1825–1893), probably taken from Farrugia.
• 10. Gioacchino Lepri after Raphael (nineteenth century, probably previous to the sale to Duke of Northumberland).⁷⁸

Previous owners

Discussion of the painting’s provenance has usually started from the account of the picture in Tito Barberi’s Catalogo ragionato della Galleria Camuccini in Roma, which was written in about 1851. The passage reads as follows: This small panel, perfectly preserved, was executed by Raphael in his second manner for Maddalena Degli Oddi, nun in Perugia […] before the year 1636 a Frenchman bought this painting from the heirs of the Degli Oddi, and brought it with him to France. […] Vincenzo Camuccini having bought it in Paris, took it back to Italy and to Rome placing it among the best pictures of his own gallery.⁷⁹

Tito Barberi was a lawyer and author of various biographies and other literary/artistic works in the 1840s and 1850s. He was a protégé of Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844) and dedicated a eulogy of him to his nephew and heir Giovanni Battista Camuccini (1819–1904).⁸⁰ This now seems like a fiction designed to obscure the painting’s actual provenance by keeping the picture separate from Pietro Camuccini’s inheritance and by removing it from any suggestion that it had recently formed part of the cultural heritage of the Papal States. Barberi’s account gained some traction when the Madonna of the Pinks was rediscovered in the 1990s, in part because the large number of French copies and prints after the composition apparently supported the idea that Vincenzo Camuccini had acquired the picture in Paris, perhaps on his only recorded visit to the French capital in 1810.⁸¹

In recent years faith in Barberi’s account of a French provenance has been overturned by Patrizia Cavazzini and Pier Ludovico Puddu.⁸² The former demonstrated that the picture could be traced to the collection of Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1608–1671) in Rome by 1640, and was owned by the same family as late as 1738–9; the latter was able to show that Vincenzo Camuccini’s older brother Pietro (1760–1833) acquired the picture in Rome between 1812 and 1814, apparently from Prince Francesco Maria Barberini (1772–1853), who was a descendant of the last known owner of the painting.⁸³

The possible provenance to Perugia or Urbino?

The claim that Maddalena degli Oddi was the patron of the Madonna of the Pinks has been considered above, and rejected; there is no reliable trace of the picture having been in a Degli Oddi collection in Perugia in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, although a version on copper was recorded at an early date in the Ranieri di Sorbello collection in the city.⁸⁴

The composition was apparently known in Urbino from an early date: see the discussion of a copy drawing by Federico Barocci under ‘Drawn and other copies’ above. This might support the proposal that it was painted for Giovanna Feltria della Rovere (see under ‘Patron’ above). As discussed immediately below, a copy by Archita Ricci was listed in the Aldobrandini collection, Rome, in 1620.⁸⁵ Ricci came from Urbino so he is another artist who could have known the picture from his youth and before his transfer to Rome.

Cardinal Antonio Barberini and his heirs

A copy of the Madonna of the Pinks by Archita Ricci (1560–1635) was listed in an inventory of the Aldobrandini collection in their residence on the Via del Corso by 1620 as follows: ‘a small picture with a Madonna and the Christ Child sitting on a white cushion who wants to take a branch of carnations held by the Madonna in her hands. It comes from Raphael, copied by Archita Ricci from Urbino’.⁸⁶ Ricci was active in Rome from 1611 to 1619 (carrying out various tasks for the Borghese family) and so the copy could have been made there.⁸⁷ However, he might also have copied the painting in his hometown.

Cardinal Antonio Barberini seems to have owned the Madonna of the Pinks by October 1640, when the prominent Roman painter Andrea Sacchi (1599–1661) relayed the Cardinal’s instruction that a minor painter, Barnabeo Frangiotti (dates unknown), should be paid 8 scudi ‘for a copy of the tiny Madonna by Raphael belonging to His Eminence’.⁸⁸ Four years later, what must be the same picture by Raphael was described in more detail in an inventory of Cardinal Antonio’s collection as ‘a small painting on wood with the Madonna sitting with the child in her lap holding carnations, by Raphael, with a crystal in front’.⁸⁹ Glazing of pictures, even small ones, was relatively rare and implies high prestige (see further under ‘Framing’ below).

Shortly after Pope Urban VIII Barberini’s death in July 1644, Cardinal Antonio was forced to leave Rome for Paris, where he arrived at the very beginning of 1646 and remained for eight years. He might well have taken his precious ‘Madonnina’ with him, and brought it back to Rome when he returned. If this was indeed the case, there would have been plenty of time for the production of a faithful painted copy in France, and this could provide an alternative explanation for how the composition came to be known in France in the second half of the seventeenth century. It was engraved there at least twice, by Jean Couvay before 1657, and by Jean Boulanger after 1665; a number of painted copies are or were in France.⁹⁰

The picture was not listed among Cardinal Antonio’s possessions on his death in 1671, but is found instead in the posthumous inventory of his nephew Prince Maffeo Barberini (1631–1685) in 1686, again recording that it was behind crystal and with dimensions that accord precisely with NG6596.⁹¹ In the same year, Carlo Maratta (1625–1713) valued the painting at 600 scudi, which reflects the painting’s status at this date as an original by Raphael.⁹² It passed from Prince Maffeo to his widow Olimpia Pamphili Giustiniani (1641–1729), and on her death the painting was apparently bequeathed to her son Cardinal Francesco (1662–1738) and valued at 1,500 scudi.⁹³

Following the cardinal’s death, the painting was recorded in Cornelia Costanza Barberini’s (1716–1797) apartments in the Palazzo Barberini as part of the inalienable Barberini primogeniture, with an even higher valuation (the measurements and the crystal glazing are again confirmed, and the painting was valued at 3,000 scudi).⁹⁴ Cornelia Costanza was the last of the family line, and when her husband Giulio Cesare Colonna started to employ Barberini property as security against loans, she first petitioned the Pope in 1769 and then was granted in 1770 the right to administer her own inheritance separately from her husband. There is then a gap in the provenance until what is evidently the same picture appears among the paintings that Principe Francesco Maria Barberini (1772–1853; grandson of Cornelia Costanza) sold to Pietro Camuccini, as discussed below.

Pietro, Vincenzo and Giovanni Battista Camuccini

The painting was recorded in Pietro’s collection in May 1818 by Passavant.⁹⁵ It was not described among the best paintings that the two Camuccini brothers owned in September 1825 when they were obliged to list these,⁹⁶ but it was listed in Pietro’s post‐mortem inventory (1833) as ‘Maniera di Raffaello’ with a relatively low valuation of 100 scudi,⁹⁷ and it passed to his son Giovanni Battista Camuccini (1819–1904) at this time. As Giovanni Battista was still a minor, the family collection was managed by his uncle, Vincenzo, and in an inventory that the latter compiled in the 1830s the picture was described as follows: ‘11. [Numero di antica nota del Sig. Pietro Camuccini] 241. Raffaelle. Madonna, e Bambino con garofoli quadro conservatissimo, dipinto per Mad.a degli Oddi Baglioni Monaca in Perugia. [Luigi] 1000’ (‘Raphael. Virgin and Child with carnations, well‐preserved picture painted for Maddalena degli Oddi Baglioni, nun in Perugia L 1000’).⁹⁸ The number ‘241’ links the picture to the Registro‐inventario delle opere di proprietà di Pietro Camuccini, 1806–33, where the picture was recorded as: ‘241 Madonna e Bambino Originale di Raffaelle d’Urbino d. Tavola Alto P. 1 O. 3½ L. P. 1 […] Luigi 500 750 1500’.⁹⁹ As Puddu has demonstrated, all the preceding and immediately following pictures in this section of Pietro Camuccini’s inventory were acquired from the collection of Principe Francesco Maria Barberini (1772–1853) between 1812 and 1814. During these years Vincenzo was involved in the process of fusing the collection of Francesco Maria and his bride Vittoria Colonna (1791–1847), and as a result the Camuccini were the obvious dealers to and through whom to sell works from the collection.¹⁰⁰ For the most part this was a transparent exercise and resulted in a new list of entailed Barberini pictures that did not include the Madonna of the Pinks,¹⁰¹ but the subsequent introduction of a French provenance in the 1850s looks like an attempt to disguise the fact that the picture was alienated from the Barberini collection in the 1810s. Penny’s speculation that this silence was a condition of the sale has been encouraged by Puddu’s subsequent analysis.

The Camuccini collection was open to the public every Sunday and so became well known.¹⁰² In addition to these inventory references the picture was also recorded in the Camuccini collection by Passavant in 1818 (discussed under ‘Attribution’ above),¹⁰³ and by Karl Josias von Bunsen (1791–1860), who was the Prussian ambassador in Rome from 1823 to 1838. In 1826 he compared the picture to the Baglioni Entombment and the Tempi Madonna as well as other Madonnas,¹⁰⁴ going on to opine that ‘In Hinsicht der Erhaltung zeichnet sich die [v] kleine Madonna von Camuccini vor vielen andern aus u wenn man auf die Ahnlichkeiten der Fisionomien u des Stils hin eine Vermuthung wagen wollte so könnte es vielleicht eins von denen kleinen Mad. seyn welche R für Guido von Montefeltro verfertigt hatte. Das Christkind gleicht auffallend dem von der Madonna des Groſzherzogs [the Madonna del Granduca, now in the Palazzo Pitti] u die Mad. hat das oben erwähnte florentinische Nationalgesicht’ (‘In terms of preservation, the [v] little Madonna by Camuccini stands out from many others and if one wanted to venture a guess based on the similarities in physiognomies and style, it could perhaps be one of those little Madonnas which R for Guido von Montefeltro had made. The Christ Child bears a striking resemblance to that of the Madonna del Granduca and the Madonna has the Florentine national face mentioned above’).¹⁰⁵ In June 1827 he wrote to King Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770–1840) that ‘dass die kleine aber sehr anmuthige Madonna in Camuccinis Besitz noch zu erhalten sein würde und zwar, da der Eigenthümer eben jetzt Geld gebrauche, wahrscheinlich für den Preis von 12 bis 1400 Ducaten’ (‘that the small but very graceful Madonna in Camuccini’s possession could still be obtained, since the owner was in need of money right now, probably for the price of 12 to 1400 ducats’). Although Von Bunsen was apparently authorised to make an offer for the picture, the proposed acquisition foundered in August when he recorded in a further letter that Camuccini had demanded 3,500 scudi romani, with an intriguing reference to interest in the picture in England as a reason to act fast and as a factor in the price quoted being high.¹⁰⁶ In the following year the Camuccini picture was engraved by Giovanni Farrugia (1803–1861);¹⁰⁷ in 1829 it was described by Longhena (discussed under ‘Attribution’ above).¹⁰⁸ In May 1830 the picture was referred to when another version was offered for sale in London, and the Madonna of the Pinks owned by Camuccini was adduced in comparison.¹⁰⁹ The French printmaker Victor Vibert drew a precise copy (fig. 9) of the picture in the Camuccini gallery between 1830 and 1833, preparatory to (or for?) an engraving that was completed in 1852 (see under ‘Prints’ above).¹¹⁰ The picture was also studied in Rome in the 1830s and 1840s by Passavant, Constantin and Platner, as discussed under ‘Attribution’ above.¹¹¹ The Camuccini collection was moved to the family’s newly acquired Roman residence, the Palazzo Cesi in Via Maschera d’Oro, where an agent of the Duke of Northumberland, probably Emil Braun, compiled a list of paintings in around 1851, which valued the Raphael Madonna of the Pinks at £2,500.¹¹² The priority of the Camuccini version was implied when a fine copy of the picture (now in a private collection in Munich) was made; this copy has an inscription on its reverse which reads: ‘cop. d. Raffaele – L’originale di medesima grandezza sta in Roma nella Casa Camuccini’.¹¹³ The picture was also described in the Camuccini collection by Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897),¹¹⁴ and in G.B. Camuccini’s inventory of March 1855, immediately prior to its sale to the Duke of Northumberland.¹¹⁵

There has been some discussion of the date of the sale of 74 paintings to Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland (1792–1865). It now seems that the sale was in train in 1855, and that Emil Braun’s (1809–1856) letter regarding the transaction should be dated 19 September 1855 (not 1853 as previously suggested).¹¹⁶ The sale was completed for 100,000 scudi romani on 25 May 1855. While 80,000 were declared in the act of sale, in fact 100,000 were handed over to Camuccini by the duke’s lawyer in Rome, Conte Antonio Giacinto Saverio Cabral (1798–1873);¹¹⁷ incidental costs including notary fees and sweeteners took the total to 125,000 scudi, which translated into £27,589, according to the detailed report of Braun who was acting for the duke. Finocchi Ghersi attributes a significant role in this complicated and potentially contentious acquisition to Giovanni Pietro Campana (1808–1880; Director of the Monte di Pietà), who was soon to be implicated in a major financial scandal, but seems to have smoothed the way for the duke’s acquisition of the Camuccini pictures.¹¹⁸

Gustav Friedrich Waagen (1794–1868) visited Alnwick Castle in 1854 while it was being remodelled by Giovanni Montiroli (1817–1888) to display the Camuccini pictures. He wrote of the Madonna of the Pinks, which he already knew but studied afresh at Northumberland House in London in 1856 or 1857 after its arrival from Italy, that ‘of all the numerous specimens of the picture I have seen, none appear to me so well entitled to be attributed to his hand as this’.¹¹⁹ In 1865 the picture was referred to as a ‘celebrated’ picture by Raphael and hung in the private sitting room (also known as the Yellow Boudoir) of the Duchess of Northumberland.¹²⁰ It was described here by Rudolf Lehmann (1819–1905) in the context of a visit in the 1870s as ‘a beautiful small picture, a Madonna and Child by Raphael’.¹²¹

The picture (which remained at Alnwick Castle) subsequently passed by inheritance to the 4th Duke’s cousin, George Percy (1778–1867) as 5th Duke, and then to his son, Algernon George Percy, 6th Duke of Northumberland (1810–1899). When the 6th Duke died he was succeeded by his son, Henry George Percy (1846–1918) as 7th Duke. By this date the picture had been moved to a less prominent position and very largely fell out of public view (and academic discourse). It passed by descent to Alan Ian Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland (1880–1930), and then to his son Henry George Alan Percy, 9th Duke of Northumberland (1912–1940), who was killed in action in the Second World War. The title then passed to his younger brother Hugh Algernon Percy, 10th Duke of Northumberland (1914–1988), and then to Henry Alan Walter Richard Percy, 11th Duke of Northumberland (1953–1995).

In this period the picture was referred to by Eastlake,¹²² Crowe and Cavalcaselle,¹²³ and Berenson who attributed the picture to Giulio Romano;¹²⁴ in 1963 the picture was shown at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle as ‘After Raphael’ (but see under ‘Attribution’ above for the picture being brought to the attention of Cecil Gould at this time).¹²⁵ As late as 1989 the picture was described as a copy and given a relatively low valuation.

Acquisition

Following Penny’s visit to Alnwick (recounted under ‘Attribution’ above) the painting was sent to the National Gallery for examination. It was subsequently offered and accepted on loan as L582, initially until March 1993.¹²⁶ In September 2002, Ralph George Algernon Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland (born 1956), whose older brother had loaned the picture to the National Gallery in London after its rediscovery a decade earlier, agreed to sell the painting to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for £35,000,000. The sale, made through the agency of Sotheby’s, was blocked by the UK Government’s Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, and the National Gallery undertook a campaign to acquire the painting for the national collection. This was achieved in March 2004 when it was purchased (from the 10th Duke of Northumberland’s Wills Trust) for £22,000,000, which included a ‘douceur’ from the government that had been introduced by HM Treasury to encourage owners to sell pre‐eminent works of art by private treaty to national collections. The purchase was achieved with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund (£11,500,000), National Art Collections Fund (£400,000 with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation), the American Friends of the National Gallery (of which £10,500,000 came from the endowment given by John Paul Getty Junior), the George Beaumont Group, Sir Christopher Ondaatje (£1,000,000) and through public appeal (£70,000). The circumstances of its acquisition are described in an article by Ashok Roy, which goes on to counter specific doubts raised about the picture before and after its acquisition.¹²⁷

Provenance

First recorded in the collection of Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1608–1671), Rome by 1640. Later recorded in the posthumous inventory of his nephew Prince Maffeo Barberini (1631–1685) in 1686, and by inheritance to his widow Olimpia Pamphili Giustiniani (1641–1729). By descent to her son, Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1662–1738), and by inheritance to his niece Cornelia Costanza Barberini (1716–1797). Later recorded in the collection of her grandson, Principe Francesco Maria Barberini (1772–1853) and sold, probably between 1812 and 1814, to Pietro Camuccini (1761–1833). By descent to his son Giovanni-Battista Camuccini (1819–1904), and sold through Emil Braun, to Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland (1792–1865) by 25 May 1855 and displayed initially at Northumberland House in London and then at Alnwick Castle. By descent at Alnwick in the Northumberland family to Ralph George Algernon Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland (born 1956). Sale agreed to the Getty Museum, Los Angeles in September 2002 but blocked from export by the UK Government’s Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art. Purchased by the National Gallery in 2004, with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund, National Art Collections Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation), the American Friends of the National Gallery (including an endowment given by John Paul Getty Junior), the George Beaumont Group, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, and through public appeal.

Framing

From 1644 until 1738/9 the picture was shown in a carved and gilded wooden frame, and protected by glazing.¹²⁸ Some of the later engravings also show a frame, but these are probably unhelpful records (for example, the reproduction of the picture in Armengaud 1857 shows an arch‐topped picture and the frame is thus of no relevance for the framing history of NG6596).

Giovanni Montiroli (1817–1888) was responsible for the design of the carved and partly gilded boxwood frame in which the picture was displayed at Alnwick Castle (and which originally attracted Nicholas Penny’s attention; now in the National Gallery, F20495). Montiroli sent a drawing to Alnwick before the end of 1862, and it was subsequently carved by the duke’s team of woodworkers, headed up by John Brown.¹²⁹ ‘Garofani’ is mistakenly carved as ‘Carofani’, which suggests the craftsman’s ignorance of Italian.

Following the loan of the painting to the National Gallery in 1991, the picture was reframed with a seventeenth‐century Bolognese‐style frame (F20496);¹³⁰ after the picture’s acquisition in 2004 its present frame, a Venetian fifteenth‐ or early sixteenth‐century cassetta frame (F20492), was purchased in 2005 from Konrad Riggauer, Munich, by Mr and Mrs Ludovic de Walden and donated to the Gallery in the same year.¹³¹

Appendix

T. Barberi, Catalogo ragionato della Galleria Camuccini in Roma, about 1851, fols 27v–29v, bound manuscript, Archives of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, DNP: MS 810. A typescript after the manuscript is in the Alnwick Castle Archives, pp. 42–3; the transcription below is from the original, fols 27v–29v, describing the Camera Quinta (fifth room) of the Camuccini collection.¹³²

A Catalogue of the Paintings in the Camuccini Gallery by Tito Barberi

Translated by D. C., fols. 77–80.¹³³

Exhibitions

Newcastle upon Tyne 1963 (66); London 1992; Edinburgh 1994 (16); Manchester 2004; Cardiff 2004; London 2004–5 (59); Glasgow 2005; Barnard Castle 2005; Bristol 2008; Newcastle upon Tyne 2008; London 2008; San Diego 2014–15; Minneapolis 2015; Berlin 2019–20; Berlin 2020; London 2022 (20).

Notes

The author is grateful to the following for their assistance in the preparation of this entry: Rachel Billinge, Christopher Hunwick, Nicholas Penny, Carol Plazzotta, Pier Ludovico Puddu, Francis Russell, Jan Sammer, Robert Skwirblies and Marika Spring.