Raphael
NG 3943 
The Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints and Angels (‘The Mond Crucifixion’)

Tom Henry, 2024

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

c. 1502–3

Oil on poplar, 283.3 × 167.3 cm; 281 × 164.5 cm (painted area within incised border)

Signed in Latin in silver leaf on the foot of the Cross: ‘RAPHAEL/VRBIN/AS/.P[INXIT]’, and inscribed in gold leaf at the top of the Cross: ‘˞  I ˞  N ˞  R ˞  I ˞ ’

Support

The picture measures 283.3 × 167.3 cm (painted area within incised border: 281 × 164.5 cm). The panel ranges between 3.0 and 3.3 cm thick; open worm channels on the back, now filled with wax, suggest the support has been thinned to some extent.¹ It is made up of six(?) vertical boards of poplar (Populus sp. identified from examination of a transverse section), cut to form an arched top.² The panel was in the past braced by two horizontal battens, which were let into the rear at 27 and 207 cm from the base: they tapered from a width of 9 cm on the right to 6.5/6.8 cm on the left (as seen from the front) and have now been replaced with wooden blocks. The support has been cradled and the cradle is made up of seven vertical members and six horizontal (sliding) members. Wooden blocks have also been inserted to secure a split in the original panel, which runs the entire height of the panel close to the right edge (as seen from the front); see further under ‘Condition and conservation’, below. The only intervention to the panel since it entered the National Gallery was that carried out in 1955, when a split at the top just to the left of centre (as viewed from the front) described as 18 inches (45.7 cm) long was ‘rejoined and wedged … from the back’.³ The reverse of the panel was covered with a layer of wax resin in 1967 to act as a moisture barrier.

An old (customs) seal on the reverse of the panel reads: ‘R.C.A. DOG DI ROMA’. This was presumably added either when the panel left Italy in 1808 when Cardinal Joseph Fesch (see ‘Previous owners, provenance and acquisition’ below) sent the picture to Paris (from where it was returned to Rome in 1823), or after the Fesch sale and as part of its definitive export to England in 1847.

Ground and priming

The panel has a traditional gesso preparation composed of gypsum (calcium sulphate dihydrate identified by X‐ray diffraction), probably bound with animal glue. This extends to the very edges of the panel, as does the thin off‐white priming applied on top of it. The priming, presumably bound in oil, is composed of lead white, a small amount of lead‐tin yellow and colourless powdered glass (manganese‐containing soda‐lime type);⁴ palm prints visible where the overlying paint is thin indicate it was patted down to make it thin and even (fig. 1). The original paint stops short at an incised line about 1.4 cm from the edge of the panel.

Underdrawing

The main elements of the composition are all underdrawn in a liquid medium using simple outlines and a little hatching for shadows. The underdrawing is occasionally visible where the paint is thin and has become more transparent with age (fig. 2), but a more complete view is obtained by using infrared imaging (fig. 3 and fig. 4). Raphael painted up to the drawn outlines with almost no revisions (again indicating how carefully the whole composition had been planned in advance). The lack of major changes and the simple, formulaic nature of the drawing is typical of Raphael’s underdrawings made from cartoons, so despite the lack of any direct evidence (such as marks from pouncing, a grid or more limited registration lines), it seems reasonable to suggest that some form of mechanical transfer was used to make the underdrawing. It has not been possible to identify the underdrawing material but some lines, clearly visible through the paint, disappear from the infrared images, while others, which do not look any different in normal light, show clearly in infrared. It would therefore seem that two different materials were used. The one that disappears is probably iron gall ink while the other must be a carbon‐containing black.⁵

Materials and technique

Linseed oil was identified as the paint binder by gas chromatography in samples from the brown foreground and Saint John’s green robe, while walnut oil was found in the blue of the sky. In further samples later analysed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry the oils were found to be heat‐bodied and the pattern was similar in that linseed oil was identified in the dark paint of the sash of the angel at the left, and walnut oil in the flesh paint of Christ’s thigh and the blue sky, the latter commonly chosen for lighter colours since it has less of a tendency to yellow over time.

The sky was painted with natural ultramarine and white over a layer of azurite and white. This paint does not run underneath even the finer features such as the calligraphic belts that wind around the angels’ waists (fig. 5), indicating how carefully the composition was planned (they seem free and spontaneous, but were instead an integral part of the design from the beginning). Despite this precise preparation, a few changes can be observed in the infrared images, such as in the landscape to the right, where the hill and the church building standing on it were first painted further to the left (fig. 6 and fig. 7). There are also some very minor adjustments to contours and drapery folds of the kind frequently made during painting.

The painting of the figures uses a range of materials and techniques. Azurite was employed in the underpaint of the Virgin’s purple‐grey cloak, combined with red lake, a little vermilion and white to establish the purplish hue. It was further modelled with a translucent dark purple paint composed of red lake, azurite and a significant amount of black, which can only have been chosen to darken the tone and so to emphasise her state of mourning (black was traditional for mourning in the period). This dark paint was applied in hatched strokes in the shadows, and blotted with a finger across the midtones and highlights to create a thin and even layer (fig. 8).

Saint Jerome is shown in a pale lilac robe consisting of red lake, azurite and variable amounts of lead white. A dark brownish‐purple mixture of azurite and red lake with some black in addition for the very darkest areas was applied in hatched strokes to model the shadows; this is likely to have darkened to some extent over time (fig. 9). He wears a red belt with touches of gilding.

Saint John the Evangelist has a deep red cloak, which is underpainted with vermilion combined with red lake, occasionally with black in addition in the darkest areas (fig. 7). Thick layers containing mainly red lake (with colourless powdered glass as an additive – see below) complete the modelling, with a cheaper madder lake having being used beneath a more expensive kermes lake pigment. The saint’s green draperies were painted with layers of translucent deep green verdigris, applied on an underpaint combining verdigris, lead‐tin yellow and white. Some of the upper layers have been blended manually and reveal fingerprints.

Saint Mary Magdalene’s draperies are a striking cangiante combination of pink (made up of red lake with variable amounts of white) and yellow (lead‐tin yellow) (fig. 2). This is worn over her dark blue dress.

The angel on the left holds two chalices to catch Christ’s blood and is dressed in green with yellow sleeves. The angel on the right looks down at Saint John while holding up a single chalice, and is dressed in yellow with red sleeves. Verdigris and red lake are blended in the rich dark tones of the angels’ wings. The same pigments have been used in the belts where they seem to have been mixed, or at least more thoroughly blended, making a dark red brown, which has perhaps darkened to some degree over time (fig. 5).

There are several distinct areas of gilding and different techniques have been employed. For the inscription at the top of the Cross (˞  I ˞  N ˞  R ˞  I ˞ ) the gold leaf was adhered with an orange‐brown oil mordant composed of red lead with some verdigris applied directly on the priming. The dark brown or black of the background was painted up to the edges of the individual letters (fig. 10).

The sun, top left, was water‐gilded with gold leaf applied over red bole; the human face was then painted with translucent red (fig. 11). Compasses were used for two incised circles, one defining the central gold disc and another larger one to indicate how far the painted rays should extend; the positions of the rays were marked out with radiating ruled incised lines. The main components of the paint of the rays are colourless powdered glass and orpiment, the latter having degraded to some extent suggesting they were originally a stronger yellow; there is also a little lead‐tin yellow in the mixture.

The moon (or eclipsed sun, see ‘Subject’ below), top right, was made in a similar way to the sun but with silver leaf instead of gold on the red bole and with blue‐grey paint to indicate the face (fig. 12). Compasses were again used to incise two circles defining the inner silver disc and the outer limit of the rays; radiating ruled incisions marked the position of some of the rays, painted in white. Large parts of this face are modern repaint over new silver, but the fact that a face is also found in the copy of 1808, discussed under ‘Versions and copies’ below, suggests that there was always a painted face.

The signature at the foot of the Cross (RAPHAEL/VRBIN/AS/.P[INXIT]) is silver leaf, but its appearance compared to the gold inscription at the top of the Cross suggests a different technique was used (fig. 13). The silver seems to have been applied as a small rectangle on the surface and then covered entirely with the brown paint of the Cross, which was then pushed away when half dry to make the letters by revealing the silver again. Ruled incised tramlines indicated the top and bottom of the letters, including some in different positions to where the signature was finally placed. The spacing of the letters in a triangular area is very elegant.

The seven figures all have gold double haloes, again marked out with incisions made with compasses. Christ’s halo is cruciform (that is, it shows the Cross within the halo). Several of the figures also have gilded patterns on the necklines and borders of their clothes, and delicate touches of gold have been added on Saint Jerome’s belt, Christ’s loincloth and for outlining on the wings of the angels. It is difficult to determine what technique was used; there is no obvious pigmented adhesive that would indicate mordant gilding and although there is some indication in paint cross sections that the gold is in flakes rather than as a cohesive layer of leaf, it is rather thicker than would be expected for shell gold.

In addition to the incisions linked to areas of gilding, ruled incisions also marked out the straight outlines of the Cross. At the top right of the central upright these lines squared off the corner, but a diagonal was painted to indicate the perspective of the side of the Cross.

Colourless powdered glass (manganese‐containing soda‐lime type) has been used as an additive not only in the priming, but also quite extensively in the paint layers. It has been confirmed not only in Saint John’s red cloak with red lake (the most common combination in paintings of this period) but also in the golden sun ray (with orpiment) and the orange‐brown shadows of the yellow drapery of the angel at the right (combined with vermilion, red earth, black and red lake).⁶

Condition and conservation

It seems probable that the painting was reframed in the seventeenth century when the original predella panels were removed (for which see ‘Later framing’ below) and it is also probable that the picture was cleaned at the time of this reframing. In a letter of 1804, the newly elevated (and newly arrived in Italy) Cardinal Fesch (1763–1839) described the picture and the state of its support as follows: a painting in the first manner of Raphael which is found in the church of the Dominicans at Città di Castello. This painting eaten by worms is now in two pieces. They do not want to repair it except by lifting the painting from the panel and in such a state as it is it would not be possible to save it for the arts except by sending it to Paris where there are experts who have performed similar operations on paintings transported from Rome which were [painted] on wood … This painting will be transformed by me into an excellent condition.⁷ This letter and the acquisition by Cardinal Fesch are discussed further below (see ‘Previous owners, provenance and acquisition’). It is possible that the cardinal exaggerated the poor condition of the panel, and in any event the painting was not transferred to canvas in Paris (for this practice, see further under NG 2069 [Mackintosh Madonna]) after Fesch had successfully acquired the picture in 1808. Writing in 1882, Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle referred to splits running through the figures of Saint John and of Saint Jerome.⁸ The first of these runs almost the full height of the panel and has been repaired with woodblocks that are visible, in addition to the cradling, on the reverse of the panel; the second corresponds with a join and also runs the whole height of the panel.

The parlous state of the picture as described by Cardinal Fesch must – in any event – have resulted in an immediate restoration before it was displayed in Paris, and it is also quite likely that the picture was cleaned on other occasions as it passed from one owner to the next in the course of the nineteenth century. The painting was cleaned and restored by John Hargrave in 1966–7. The paint surface was found to be generally in good condition (fig. 14). There are retouched losses along some of the joins in the panel, the most significant being that running through the figure of Christ causing damage to his face. Parts of his left eye, left nostril and the side of his mouth have therefore been reconstructed. Other restored losses occur in the Cross around Christ’s feet, in the sky and in Christ’s legs, and along scratches in the cloaks of the Virgin and Saint John. Saint Mary Magdalene’s gauze veil seems to have suffered some abrasion in a past cleaning, but its current appearance is mainly the result of increased transparency of the paint over time, which has affected this area more badly as the paint was very thinly applied. Much of the old restoration to the silver moon was left in place during the most recent cleaning.

Attribution

There has never been any doubt regarding the picture’s attribution: it is Raphael’s first signed work. The signature is prominent at the foot of the Cross, a little above eye level in its original installation, and indicated by the figure of Saint Jerome. Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) referred to the fact that the picture was signed in the 1550 edition of his Lives of the Artists. This passage is commented on further under ‘Description and style’ below.

Writing after the picture had already left Città di Castello, the local historian Giacomo Mancini misdescribed the signature as reading R.S.U.P. (presumably for raffaello santi Urbinas pinxit or a similar phrase), but these letters are no longer visible and were probably always a mis‐transcription or shorthand version of the original signature.

While Raphael had workshop assistance from the beginning of his career (and certainly from 1500), and although there is no reason why an assistant might not have helped with the preparation of the panel or some of the underpainting, Raphael was apparently responsible for all the upper paint layers.

The patron and his commission

The altarpiece was commissioned by Domenico Gavari, who was a politically active wool merchant and banker in Città di Castello, a small town in northern Umbria, which was part of the Papal states in the period when this picture was painted through to the moment when it left the city with the Pope’s blessing. Gavari’s responsibility for the commission was recorded in an inscription, further discussed below (see ‘The Gavari Chapel in S. Domenico’), which provides an approximate date for the altarpiece of 1503.

Domenico di Tommaso di Giovanni Gavari lived in the quarter of the Porta Santa Maria in the southern part of Città di Castello, near to the church of S. Domenico (probably in the modern‐day Via dei Gauri – an alternative spelling of Gavari). He can be traced from 1486, and died between 1521 and 1524.⁹ Various documents refer to his shop, and to the bales of wool and woollen gloves that were part of his stock‐in‐trade.¹⁰ There are references to loans being repaid to Gavari,¹¹ and he was also a significant landowner, completing numerous sales and purchases in the years 1500–2.¹² Gavari married Angela di Christofano di Jacopo (Sellari) before March 1497, but it appears the couple did not have any children. Angela can be traced until July 1505,¹³ but must have died before 1511, since Gavari had remarried (Mariecta Andreocci) by this date.¹⁴ Gavari also held various political offices in Città di Castello. He served regularly as a prior of the city, on the Consiglio del XVI and del XXXII, as well as a rector of the confraternity and on other governmental committees.¹⁵ Gavari had a very similar civic profile to Andrea Baronci (active 1466–1503/5), who was Raphael’s first patron in Città di Castello (commissioning the Coronation of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino altarpiece from him in December 1500 for his chapel in the local church of S. Agostino). The two men lived in the same quarter and both were buried in S. Domenico. Confirmation of the close ties between the two families can be found in the will of Baronci’s widow, Clara, which was drawn up in Gavari’s chapel (and so at the foot of Raphael’s Crucifixion) in September 1512.¹⁶ Unusually, Clara Baronci instituted Gavari as her universal heir in this will, and it seems reasonable to suggest that Andrea Baronci provided the link between Raphael and Gavari.

Domenico Gavari made at least six wills, and an analysis of the changes in his circumstances that they reveal sheds light upon his choices as a patron. His first will was made in March 1497. Gavari requested that he should be buried in the church of S. Domenico; he established his wife as his heir in the first instance; and he left 50 florins to each of the major churches of the city and 25 florins to the principal confraternity (S. Maria della Pietà). His two brothers were to receive 100 florins each, but the bulk of his estate was promised – after the death of his widow – to the chapter and brothers of S. Domenico.¹⁷ Gavari’s second will followed 14 months later, in May 1498. He again specified that he should be buried in S. Domenico, but on this occasion he bequeathed the community a specific property. The community was forbidden from selling this property, and Gavari left a further 10 florins for the purchase of a new chalice and a black altar cloth. The will continued with bequests of 25 florins to each of the major churches of the city (six in all), and a further 10 florins for each of them to buy a new chalice and a black altar cloth. His brothers were now to receive 250 florins each, and his wife was again instituted as his universal heir (with the convent of S. Domenico to inherit on her death).¹⁸ It is clear from these wills that Domenico and Angela did not have any (surviving) children.

Gavari’s most interesting will was made 13 years later, in May 1511. In this will he asked that his body be buried ‘in the church of S. Domenico, in his tomb in the chapel of Saint Jerome’ (‘in ecclesia S.ti Dominici in sepulcro eius capelle sancti Hieronimi’) and he attached the legacy of the country property (originally mentioned in 1498) to this chapel. His bequests to other churches in the city were greatly reduced, but two new companies were added to the beneficiaries: the local Hieronymites, and the confraternity of S. Maria in the church of S. Domenico. His new wife, Mariecta, was made beneficiary for life of his estate, but his son, Girolamo (Jerome), was now instituted as his universal heir. The will makes it clear that Girolamo Gavari, who cannot have been more than five years old, was the only child of Domenico and Mariecta.¹⁹ Gavari’s subsequent wills of 1514, 1519 and 1521 establish that Girolamo died young, but that three other children had been born: Angela, Bernardino and Giovanna.²⁰ The last of his wills – in which Gavari is described as in failing health (‘corpore languens’) – was drawn up in 1521, and again instructed that he should be buried ‘in the church of S. Domenico, in his tomb in front of his chapel of Saint Jerome’ (‘in ecclesia S. Dominici in eius sepultura apud eius capellam Sti Hieronymi’).²¹ Gavari was described as ‘defunct’ in February 1524.²²

The Gavari Chapel in S. Domenico

The church of S. Domenico was founded before 1254 and the present structure was built between 1400 and 1424 (fig. 15).²³ The prior of S. Domenico at the dawn of the sixteenth century was Dom Luminato Bartoli, who presided over a resident community of eight Dominicans.²⁴ Apart from some fragmentary fifteenth‐century frescoes, there is very little evidence regarding the decoration of the church prior to Raphael’s activity there.²⁵ The one significant exception is Signorelli’s Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (fig. 16), which was painted for a chapel in the church in about 1498.

Domenico Gavari’s wills (discussed under ‘The patron and his commission’ above) establish that his chapel in S. Domenico was dedicated to Saint Jerome; his devotion to the saint is further suggested by naming his firstborn son Girolamo (= Jerome), and by his support of the local Hieronymites (through bequests in his will). This indicates a special relationship to Saint Jerome, and is exactly what the religious writer Giovanni d’Andrea da Bologna (d. 1348) had encouraged parents to do in his popular manual, the Laudatus Ioannes Andreas.²⁶ Moreover, Giovanni’s writings, and his example, encouraged the faithful to found altars dedicated to the saint, and – as discussed under ‘Predella’ below – the narrative episodes in Raphael’s predella were popularised by him.²⁷ The dedication to Saint Jerome could have been pre‐existing, or suggested by the local Dominicans, but the evidence of Gavari’s wills supports the conclusion that it was probably the patron who personally chose to dedicate his chapel to the saint.

The chapel might have had a secondary dedication to the Crucifixion. Later descriptions refer to the chapel as ‘del SS.mo Crocifisso’,²⁸ and Clara Baronci’s will of 1512 was made ‘in ecclesia S. Dominici videlicet apud altare Crucifici’.²⁹ Moreover, the Gavari arms (as seen in the altarpiece frame, fig. 17) showed a hand clasping a cross, and this might have influenced Gavari in his devotion to the Cross (and his related devotion to Saint Jerome). Christa Gardner von Teuffel suggested to the present author that the demolition of the medieval screen in S. Domenico (and in other fifteenth‐century churches) might have resulted in the cult of the crucifix being transferred from the screen to a nearby side chapel.³⁰

Gavari’s chapel still survives in S. Domenico. This stone side chapel has one of the very few original frames to survive for an altarpiece by Raphael. It is on the south wall of the church, close to one of the two choir chapels that flank the high altar, and it consists of an arch‐topped pietra serena (local grey sandstone) frame, with a horizontal lintel above where the altar originally stood (fig. 15; the altar table no longer exists); the top of this lintel is 168 cm above the floor of the church (the floor is not original, but was always at approximately this height), which establishes a precise height, just above eye level for the predella panels and for Raphael’s signature on the base of the Cross. The lintel (44 × 236 cm) is inscribed in Latin: ‘HOC ˞  OPVS ˞  FIERI ˞  FECIT ˞  DŇICVS ˞  / THOME ˞  DEGAVARIS ˞  MᵒDᵒIIIᵒ ˞ ’ (‘Domenico di Tommaso Gavari had this work made 1503’). The Gavari family’s coat of arms is visible in the impost blocks of the Corinthian capitals (fig. 17). The area originally occupied by the picture measures 334 × 184.5 × 9 cm,³¹ while Raphael’s Crucifixion measures 283.3 × 167.3 cm (painted area 281 × 164.5 cm; the predella panels – discussed under ‘Predella’ below – measure 24.7 × 42 cm and 25.1 × 43.2 cm each). Although Raphael’s altarpiece has been cradled it was not significantly reduced in size in the process, and as described above (see ‘Materials and technique’) an unpainted gesso border can be seen all around the painting. The disparity between the measurements of the panel/painted area and the stone frame in which it originally stood can probably be accounted for by an approximately 10 cm gilded wooden slip frame, which overlapped the unpainted border (1.4 cm) of Raphael’s panel and the approximately 8.75 cm void to either side and around the arched top. By extension, a 10 cm frame with a rebate that covered between the main panel and the predella, and all around the predella, would seem a plausible explanation of how the complete altarpiece stood in the available space; and altarpieces in stone frames usually have a wooden frame of some sort. A single, later, source (discussed under ‘Predella’ below) suggests that the frame included subsidiary panels in addition to the predella, but the approximate 10 cm available to each side would seem to rule this out. This deduction is apparently confirmed by the requirement in 1505 of another artist (Francesco Tifernate) to use Domenico Gavari’s altarpiece as a model for his own picture with the specific undertaking to employ a large quantity of gold for the frame, as in Gavari’s altarpiece.³² It should also be noted that the Corinthian capitals of the stone altar‐frame, the wings of the cherubim and the frame of this frieze, as well as the rosettes in the coffering of the arch, are all gilded.

Raphael’s picture was first referred to in this church by Vasari in 1550, and in very similar terms in 1568 (see ‘Description and style’ below for a discussion of this passage). It was subsequently recorded by most published and manuscript guides to the city.³³ A more detailed description of the chapel dates to the 1720s (by which time the altarpiece’s predella – for which see ‘Predella’ below – had been removed). In his Origine delle chiese e monasteri di Città di Castello Alessandro Certini recorded: … returning to the Church via the door to the bell‐tower, and following the order [of the chapels], you will find the altar of the Most Holy Crucifix, a privileged altar, which is painted with a panel by the excellent Raphael of Urbino in the year 1503 of which Giorgio Vasari mentions in the Life of the same at page 66 in the Lives of the Painters saying ‘there is similarly in San Domenico the panel of a crucifix which if there was not the name of Raphael written, no one would believe it to be his work, but instead by Pietro [Perugino] his teacher.’ Its ornament is of very well carved stone, a companion to that of San Sebastiano de’ Brozzi, which is opposite. And this chapel is presently owned by the Gualterotti family, in the capitals there are the arms of the Gavari, builders of the chapel, which show a hand holding a cross. … On the step [gradino]³⁴ of the aforementioned altar … we read: Hoc Opus Fecit Fieri Dominicus Thome De Gavaris 1504 [sic].³⁵ Certini’s mistaken transcription of the date is difficult to explain (it can be checked against the surviving inscription, and earlier in the same passage he gives the date of 1503, which does correspond with the inscription).³⁶ A very similar frame is on the opposite side of the church and formerly contained the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (fig. 16) by Luca Signorelli (about 1450–1523), which Signorelli had painted for Tommaso Brozzi (d. 1502). An analysis of Brozzi’s wills suggests that Signorelli’s altarpiece was installed about 1498, and a later eighteenth‐century description of the Brozzi Chapel establishes that it originally included an inscription with the patron’s name and this date.³⁷ A third frame – now lost, but again recorded as having a carved stone inscription with the patrons’ names (Giovanni and Ludovica Magalotti) and a date (1504) – was on the entrance wall of the church.³⁸ The Magalotti altarpiece was painted by Francesco Tifernate (about 1485/7–after 1506), and is an Annunciation now in the Pinacoteca Communale at Città di Castello (297 × 177 cm, that is, a very similar size and format to both the Mond Crucifixion and Signorelli’s Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, which measures 288 × 175 cm).³⁹ The Magalotti altar‐frame was stated to be identical to the Brozzi and Gavari frames, and again it had a date.⁴⁰ Assessment of the evidential value of the date inscribed on the Gavari altar‐frame is undermined by the fact that Ludovica Magalotti did not commission her altarpiece until 11 November 1505, and specified delivery of the painting by August 1506.⁴¹ In other words, if the date of 1504 was correctly recorded (a big ‘if’ in the context of other errors introduced by Certini), then the Magalotti frame was completed before Francesco Tifernate’s Annunciation was even commissioned. In 2006 the present author suggested that an arch‐topped drawing of the Annunciation by Raphael in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMH 291‐2/1863) might have been an early proposal for Ludovica Magalotti’s altarpiece. It is possible that the Magalotti frame was built before Raphael turned his back on Città di Castello and that he received the Magalotti commission after he delivered the Marriage of the Virgin (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) to its location in the church of S. Francesco, Città di Castello, in 1504, but never completed his Annunciation.⁴²

Taking the lost but documented and described Magalotti altar‐frame, and the two that survive (Brozzi and Gavari), it seems that there was a concerted attempt to introduce some uniformity into chapel design in S. Domenico in the years 1498–1504/5. The Brozzi and Gavari frames are clearly designed as a pair, and the area reserved for a panel in each is almost identical (Brozzi: 314 × 186 cm; Gavari: 334 × 184.5 cm). The Gavari altar‐frame is not, however, identical to Tommaso Brozzi’s frame. There are small, but marked differences between the two; for instance in the carving of the capitals, seraphim (these are in very low relief in the Brozzi frame, and more fully formed in the Gavari frame) and decorative detail (where the Brozzi frame has suns in the coffering of the arch, the Gavari frame has rosettes, etc.). John Shearman suggested that both frames might have been designed by Raphael, about 1502–4; however this seems unlikely, not least because of these differences, but also because of the evidence for dating the Brozzi altarpiece and its frame to 1498.⁴³ The style of the carved frames has recently been linked to motifs popularised by the della Robbia family in Florence, and there were several experienced Florentine stonemasons and sculptors working in Città di Castello in the 1490s and 1500s.⁴⁴

It has not been observed until now that the elegant three‐cornered punctuation marks in the inscription at the top of the Cross (˞  I ˞  N ˞  R ˞  I ˞ ) in Raphael’s painting are very similar to those in the inscription on the lintel with the patron’s name and date (fig. 10 and fig. 18). Similarities can also be observed in the formation of the following letters: R, H, P, E, V and N; in both cases the spacing is extremely elegant. This could bolster an argument for the two inscriptions being closely contemporary, and could even point to Raphael’s involvement with the lintel (by, perhaps, providing a drawing of the lettering for the stonemason to work from). It does not follow that Raphael was responsible for the overall design of the frame.

Dating

A terminus ante quem for Raphael’s picture is established by the aforementioned stipulation in a contract of November 1505 that Francesco Tifernate should model the format, scale, quality and gilding of his Annunciation for Ludovica Magalotti on Domenico Gavari’s Crucifixion altarpiece.⁴⁵

In recent literature most scholars have accepted the date on the lintel (1503) as marking the completion of the chapel and the installation of Raphael’s altarpiece. However, and as discussed under ‘The Gavari Chapel in S. Domenico’ above, the relationship of these inscriptions on the stone frames to the altarpieces they displayed is not straightforward; and the inscription does not directly date Raphael’s picture, but instead the wall chapel in which it was set up.⁴⁶ Carl Friedrich von Rumohr suggested a later date, 1504, and was recently followed in this by Paola Mercurelli Salari.⁴⁷ Giacomo Mancini proposed an earlier date of 1500/1, arguing that the stone frame was a subsequent modification.⁴⁸ He was apparently aware – as were Luigi Lanzi,⁴⁹ Friedrich Rehberg⁵⁰ and Johann David Passavant⁵¹ – of the contract by which Raphael was commissioned in December 1500 to paint an altarpiece for Andrea Baronci’s chapel in the church of S. Agostino in Città di Castello (long before the first full publication of this contract, and the related quittance of September 1501, in 1908), and presumed that the Crucifixion followed closely after.⁵² The seductive power of firm dates for Raphael’s activity in Città di Castello fostered this local tradition, and the Peruginesque style of Raphael’s picture was taken as confirming an early date, with Crowe and Cavalcaselle opining that ‘we can scarcely doubt that the “Crucifixion” … was the earliest picture which Raphael composed on a large scale at the opening of his career’.⁵³

Following the identification by Oskar Fischel of the preparatory drawing for Raphael’s Baronci altarpiece of 1500–1, and of three fragments from the picture in Naples and Brescia,⁵⁴ the early dating of the Mond Crucifixion started to ebb away as scholars increasingly tried to put some distance between the two altarpieces to account for the differences in their quality and style. This direction of travel has been reinforced by a recent tendency (especially in British and American scholarship, but increasingly in Italy as well) to question the traditional account of Raphael’s training, which placed him in Pietro Perugino’s workshop in the 1490s (following Vasari).⁵⁵ Scholars who have favoured Raphael being formed in Perugino’s workshop in the 1490s have frequently argued that, as Raphael’s most Peruginesque work, the Mond Crucifixion represents Raphael’s first independent work after an apprenticeship with Perugino (about 1450–1523) and have consequently dated the picture about 1500–1. If, as these scholars have argued, Raphael’s direct and most intensive exposure to Perugino’s work and working practices was not in the 1490s, but instead in the years 1502–4 when increasingly the younger artist was to be found in Perugia, then on the basis of its style this picture is likely to date to 1503, or perhaps the slightly earlier date of 1502–3. This dating also better explains the relationship between the Mond Crucifixion and Perugino’s S. Francesco al Monte altarpiece (further discussed under ‘Description and style’ below), and the fact that Raphael’s Crucifixion is much more Peruginesque than either the remaining fragments of the Coronation of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino altarpiece or the S. Trinità banner. Viewed in this way – and in the context of the date of 1503 that is inscribed on the altar‐frame – the clear stylistic debts to Perugino, combined with the debts to Luca Signorelli and perhaps to Bernardino Pintoricchio (about 1454–1513) in the predella, suggest that the picture stands at the point of maximum engagement with Perugino while still showing traces of Raphael’s slightly earlier interest in Signorelli and Pintoricchio, and a date of about 1502–3 seems likely.⁵⁶

Subject

Christ’s crucifixion was the central sacrifice of Christian faith, recounted in all four Gospels and endlessly depicted. The Cross is parallel to the picture plane but seen slightly from the right, with the effect being that its right side is visible. Raphael established this subtle viewpoint by using a slightly darker tone of brown paint on the (shaded) right side of the Cross. The Crucifixion is set in a deeply receding landscape that closely resembles the upper Tiber valley near Città di Castello (the town is probably shown in the middle ground, to either side of the Cross), and the river meanders through the centre of the picture, just as the Tiber does to the north and south of the city.⁵⁷ By evoking a local setting, which was not uncommon at the time, the artist transports the Crucifixion at Golgotha (or Calvary) to northern Umbria. The picture is normally thought to depict the simultaneous appearance of both the sun and the moon above the Cross as a way to symbolise the eclipse that allegedly occurred when Christ died, throwing the world into darkness from midday until mid‐afternoon (as described in the Gospels, for example Luke 23: 44–5). It seems possible that Raphael has instead followed Perugino (see the examples discussed in ‘Description and style’ below) by showing the sun twice: on the left before the eclipse, and on the right during the eclipse with the moon passing in front of, or perhaps darkening the face of, the sun.⁵⁸

The Mond Crucifixion does not depict the soldiers, the rabble or the simultaneous crucifixion of two thieves. As such it is in part a symbolic representation of the Gospel narrative. It was traditional to represent the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross. Saint Mary Magdalene is shown on her knees in devotion to the figure of the crucified Christ. The Virgin Mary stands on the left, and her purplish‐black dress suggests her mourning. Saint John the Evangelist is on the right, and engages the viewer’s emotions (see under ‘Previous owners, provenance and acquisition’ below for the response of Henrietta Hertz to this figure). Saint Jerome (347–423) was not present at the Crucifixion, but there was a long tradition of including later saints in New Testament scenes. Jerome had translated the Bible into Latin, and was a Doctor of the Church. He was famous for his meditations on the Passion and devotion to the crucifix, and seems to have inspired particular devotion in Domenico Gavari (for which, see ‘The patron and his commission’ above). He is shown kneeling, and with a rock in one hand with which he has been beating his chest as he looks up in devotion at the figure of Christ on the Cross. He and Mary Magdalene provide worshippers at the altar with models of devotion, while the Virgin and Saint John mourn quietly, and engage the viewer with their gaze.

The eucharistic symbolism of Raphael’s altarpiece – with the presentation of the body of Christ and two angels catching his blood in metal chalices – has frequently been noted, and the patron may have chosen this iconography for its promise of resurrection. Domenico Gavari elected to be buried in front of this picture (where Masses were said for the salvation of his soul), and his earlier wills included legacies to pay for new chalices for S. Domenico and other churches in Città di Castello.⁵⁹ The removal of these bequests in later wills might even suggest that he had fulfilled this intention within his lifetime, in which case the three metal chalices in Raphael’s picture could reflect Gavari’s gifts to the church. These might even have been made by Raphael’s friend, the local goldsmith Battista Floridi (d. after 1511), who had been the artist’s guarantor in the 1500 Baronci contract, and whose son Francesco Tifernate demonstrates various points of connection with Raphael.

Predella

Several sources stated that the altarpiece had a predella, and two panels have been identified in Lisbon, Portugal, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The original association of these predella panels with the altarpiece was proposed by Georg Gronau in 1908.⁶⁰ These panels, which have both been cut at their lateral ends, depict posthumous episodes from the life of Saint Jerome (the principal dedication of Gavari’s chapel) as told in the Hieronymianum. There must originally have been three, or improbably four, scenes in Raphael’s predella and it seems likely that one other (presumably earlier) incident from the Hieronymianum was originally included. The surviving panels depict Eusebius of Cremona raising Three Men from the Dead with Saint Jerome’s Cloak (fig. 19) and Saint Jerome saving Silvanus and punishing the Heretic Sabinianus (fig. 20). These panels, in which a continuous landscape with a winding river suggests that they were originally next to each other and with only a small gap between them, account for a little less than half the width of Raphael’s Crucifixion (85.9 cm vs 167 cm, while the available space in the original stone frame allows for a picture up to 184.5 cm wide). The two surviving panels were shown together (unframed) with the Mond Crucifixion in London in 2004–5.⁶¹ Like the main panel they are lit from the upper left, which corresponds with the way light falls from the large window in the chapel that flanks the high altar of S. Domenico (now glazed with stained glass by Francesco Mossmeyer [1851–1934], dated 1917).

The two episodes of Eusebius of Cremona raising Three Men from the Dead with Saint Jerome’s Cloak and Saint Jerome saving Silvanus and punishing the Heretic Sabinianus originated in the apocryphal letter of Saint Cyril to Saint Augustine and had been popularised by the Hieronymianum, a short text written by Giovanni d’Andrea di Bologna (for whom, see ‘The Gavari Chapel in S. Domenico’ above), which was frequently published and translated in Italy in the fifteenth century, normally as Il Devoto Transito del Glorioso Sancto Hieronymo. This latter tract appears to have been the principal source for the predellas of several altarpieces dedicated to Saint Jerome (for example, those by Sano di Pietro [1405–1481], Perugino and Luca Signorelli, including Signorelli’s predella in the National Gallery, NG 3946, which was also bought by Ludwig Mond and entered the National Gallery with his bequest; see further under ‘Previous owners, provenance and acquisition’ below⁶²). This interest in the cult of Saint Jerome was promoted in a number of Dominican communities, and episodes drawn from the Hieronymianum also feature in Matteo di Giovanni’s (active 1452; d. 1495) Placidi Altarpiece in S. Domenico, Siena.⁶³

There are different, possibly conflicting, versions of how the predella of the Gavari Crucifixion was separated from the main panel. The nineteenth‐century local historian Giovanni Magherini‐Graziani cited a (now lost) manuscript by Francesco Vitelli (1582–1646), which recorded that Raphael’s ‘ornamentino … con alcune figurine bellissime’ was given to Cardinal Bevilacqua.⁶⁴ Bonifazio Bevilacqua Aldobrandini (1571–1627) was installed as Cardinal of S. Anastasia in 1599. In 1600 he was sent to Perugia as the papal legate to Umbria and he remained there until shortly before his death in 1627.⁶⁵ Giacomo Mancini, on the other hand, published a section of the Ricordo, or diary, of Gian Francesco Andreocci in which he recorded Cardinal Cesare Maria Rasponi’s (1615–1675) visit to Città di Castello on 27 October 1668: ‘While touring the city he lingered a lot to admire the painting by Raphael in S. Domenico … and those Friars gave him a predella [‘gradino’] that was under this painting, and which is believed to have been painted by Raphael’.⁶⁶ Six years earlier Mancini referred to the predella’s fate in terms that could describe either the former or the latter account.⁶⁷ And in 1829 Giuseppe Andreocci referred to the gift to Cardinal Rasponi under the erroneous date of 1652, and noted that in addition to the predella there were ‘alcune Tavolette intorno’, a claim that finds no other corroboration.⁶⁸

Unfortunately, nothing about the provenance of either the Lisbon or the Raleigh panel helps to establish the veracity of these events and one cannot exclude the possibility that both might have taken place. The panel now in Raleigh was first recorded when it was sold at Christie’s in London on 16 May 1801 (lot 10) by William Young Ottley (1771–1836). It was said at this time to have a provenance from Palazzo Borghese and to have been acquired by Ottley in Rome. It has not been identified in Borghese inventories despite apparently having what seems to be a Borghese inventory number painted in the bottom right‐hand corner of the panel: 213.⁶⁹ The Lisbon panel was said to have been with a Roman art dealer before 1845 and to have come from an unnamed private collection in Pennabilli (Emilia Romagna), before its acquisition by Jorge Husson da Câmara (d. 1877) and its subsequent passage to the Portuguese Royal Academy. Pennabilli is about 45 km from Ravenna, which was home to the Rasponi family, and this connection might lend some support to the Rasponi provenance.

Two other panels have been linked to the altarpiece’s predella in the past. An Annunciation in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (J 136), first recorded in the collection of Giacomo Mancini in Città di Castello in 1822, was attributed to Raphael and linked with the Gavari altarpiece by Mancini.⁷⁰ The picture is now attributed to Luca Signorelli, and the correct identification of the artist, and the subsequent identification of the panels in Raleigh and Lisbon, eliminate Signorelli’s Annunciation from discussion of the Gavari predella.⁷¹ The Procession to Calvary (NG 2919) was also proposed as the central part of this predella by Giovanni Magherini‐Graziani and Enrico Giovagnoli in 1927, but there are no grounds for this connection (and very many arguments against it; see under NG 2919).⁷²

Description and style

Ever since Vasari referred to Raphael’s Crucifixion in the 1550 edition of his Lives of the Artists the painting has been discussed in the context of Raphael’s relationship with Pietro Perugino. Vasari, who had visited Città di Castello in 1534 (and made designs for Cristoforo Gherardi’s [1508–1556] frescoes on the garden façade of the Palazzo Vitelli alla Cannoniera),⁷³ wrote that, having learnt in just a few months how to imitate the art of Perugino, Raphael: departed from Perugia and went off with some friends to Città di Castello, where he painted a panel for S. Agostino in the same manner, and likewise one of a Crucifixion for S. Domenico, which, if his name were not written upon it, no one would believe to be a work by Raffaello, but rather by Pietro [Perugino].⁷⁴

His account continued to discuss the Marriage of the Virgin, which Raphael painted for the local church of S. Francesco in 1504, and then described how the fame of these works resulted in Raphael being asked to provide drawings to Pintoricchio in connection with his commission in the Piccolomini Library, Siena. As is frequently the case, Vasari’s account needs a lot of untangling, and in pursuit of literary and narrative flow he elides events in ways that are demonstrably wrong while still hinting at underlying grains of truth. So, while contemporary documents and later evidence demonstrate the existence of the three altarpieces that Vasari refers to, and the fact that Raphael was not working alone (at least on the S. Agostino altarpiece where the contract was jointly made with Evangelista da Pian di Meleto [about 1460–1549]), there is also evidence that demonstrates that his collaboration with Pintoricchio in the Piccolomini Library predated the Marriage of the Virgin and can be dated 1502–3.⁷⁵ But trying to extract granular detail from Vasari’s account is to miss the underlying point that he was emphasising in this passage, which was about changes in Raphael’s early style and the origins of this change in first imitating and then surpassing Perugino’s art.

The relevance of this discussion for the dating of the picture, and how this relates to arguments about Raphael’s training, is touched on above (see ‘Dating’). Analysis here is limited to what one can learn about the style of the picture by studying its debts to Perugino’s repertoire (borrowings that may have been requested by Raphael’s patrons, or designed for their tastes). Raphael took the basic compositional solution that Perugino had developed in a series of Crucifixions in the 1480s and 1490s, and which the older artist developed further in the first years of the sixteenth century, especially in his Crucifixion with Saints formerly in S. Francesco al Monte (or Monteripido) in Perugia (fig. 21), and to a lesser extent the Crucifixion with Saints for the Chigi Chapel in S. Agostino, Siena (commissioned August 1502; delivered 1506).⁷⁶ The origins in earlier compositions by Perugino rules out the possibility that he followed Raphael, and so takes one back to the conclusion that Raphael’s Mond Crucifixion depends upon Perugino’s double‐sided S. Francesco al Monte Crucifixion with Saints.⁷⁷ The essential poses of the Virgin Mary, Saint John and the Magdalen (whose pose is reversed but is otherwise the model that is most closely followed by Raphael), as well as details such as the sun and moon to symbolise an eclipse, and the fluttering belts of the two angels, all originated in Perugino’s altarpiece. Saint Jerome in Raphael’s Crucifixion is based on the same saint in Perugino’s Pala Tezi for S. Agostino, Perugia (1500; Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia), but is much less stiff than Perugino’s model, which was apparently painted by a workshop member.⁷⁸ In addition to these connections, the mannered angling and foreshortening of the saints’ heads, the devout and grieving casts of their faces, and the expressive and stylised gestures of their hands come straight out of Perugino’s wider corpus. The wings of the angels are also similar to those of the archangels in Perugino’s Certosa Altarpiece (NG 288), although Raphael’s technique of scumbling in red lake glazes over green to create a rich dark brown is more closely related to Giovanni Santi’s (active 1469–1494) technique than to Perugino’s art. Characteristic details such as the double haloes (one concentric circle inside another) and the eyelashes that stick out like points from the centre of the figures’ eyelids, and feet with an elongated second toe, all derive from very close observation of Perugino’s work. There are also technical similarities such as the very thin flesh paint, and the use of cross‐hatching in darker glazes to define shaded areas.⁷⁹ The colours employed for the foreground figures are typical of Perugino (for example, the cangiante pink worn by the Magdalen, which is yellow in its highlights and crimson in the shadows). Raphael also demonstrates his desire to emulate Perugino’s mastery of atmospheric perspective in landscape painting: a feeling for landscape is a feature shared by Perugino and Raphael, and the former was specifically praised for his ‘aria angelica e molto dolce’ (‘angelic and very sweet air’).⁸⁰

The respective dating of Perugino’s models and Raphael’s painting has an inevitable bearing on the analysis of influence. Perugino’s S. Francesco al Monte altarpiece was commissioned in September 1502 (for delivery by Easter 1503), but completion is usually dated about 1504–6 on the grounds that Perugino was extremely busy around 1502–3 and cannot possibly have delivered the picture on time.⁸¹ But given that numerous scholars have argued that Perugino’s picture was executed in Perugia by one of his best assistants (Raphael’s name has been suggested, although this is unlikely at a date when the younger artist was accepting commissions in his own name), it seems that Perugino probably designed the picture as soon as it was commissioned, and that his workshop started painting it within a year of the commission (with Perugino overseeing completion on the various occasions on which he returned to Perugia in the course of 1503).⁸² Interestingly, this also became Raphael’s later modus operandi, and it is often pointed out how much the younger artist learnt from Perugino about running a busy painting practice.⁸³ A similar situation appears to have occurred with their respective versions of the Marriage of the Virgin, with Raphael again seeming to have had knowledge of Perugino’s composition before the latter’s picture was unveiled.⁸⁴ This suggests that the artist from Urbino had access to Perugino’s workshop in the Ospedale della Misericordia in Perugia, 1502–4, and in the nineteenth century it was commonplace to suggest that Raphael might have executed (or designed?) his Crucifixion in Perugia or even in Perugino’s workshop.⁸⁵ Raphael was certainly documented in Perugia in January and March 1503 and in January 1504,⁸⁶ when he was first instituted as the local representative of a merchant from Urbino who needed to collect a debt in Perugia, and then acted in this matter. The clear implication is that Raphael was based in Perugia at the time, otherwise the merchant would have chosen someone else. But whether one is examining the Mond Crucifixion or the Marriage of the Virgin in Milan, the greater spatial, pattern‐making and figural sophistication reflect Raphael’s translation of a Perugino composition into his own idiom, and the compulsion he felt to improve upon his models.

One of the most striking aspects of the Mond Crucifixion’s design is how effectively it reads at a distance and in low light, as a result of the strong contrasts and geometric clarity of the composition. This clarity and legibility were probably planned with the original location in mind to account for limited natural light in the church, and the potential to see the picture from a long way away when entering from the side door in the middle of the north aisle, or approaching down the wide nave of the church from the east door. The picture is exquisitely balanced, but despite its apparent symmetry there is nothing mechanical about, for instance, the pairing of the angels. The composition is based on careful geometrical planning and is made up of a series of arcs, echoing or mirroring the arched top of the composition, through the placement of the angels’ feet, or the heads of the figures below the Cross. This, and the lack of pentimenti, suggests that Raphael carefully mapped out the design of the picture in advance, probably using a cartoon.

Perugino’s example was not the only spur to Raphael’s depiction of the Crucifixion. There were at least two other crucifixions that he could refer to in the church of S. Domenico (a fifteenth‐century fresco in the nave, and an earlier composition that is now in a side chapel), but he took very little from these examples. Instead he looked carefully at the recently installed altarpiece by Signorelli directly opposite the Gavari altar, and drawings by Raphael after figures by Signorelli in this picture attest to his study of it.⁸⁷ The compositional geometry of Raphael’s Crucifixion follows the model of Signorelli’s Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, with a disc of space for the figures in the foreground and then a distant landscape, and with the physicality of a male nude dominating the upper half of the composition. The elongated figure of Christ is much more three‐dimensional than in Perugino’s treatments and again suggests Raphael’s study of Signorelli, in this case the latter’s Crucifixion of 1494 (fig. 22; compare fig. 23), then in the church of S. Spirito in Urbino and now in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche there.⁸⁸ Raphael’s Christ, with its emphasis on outline, its appreciation of bone structure and the rendering of musculature with delicate highlights, is strikingly similar to Signorelli’s and is one of the least Peruginesque aspects of the Mond Crucifixion. It makes perfect sense that Raphael, when called upon to paint a crucifixion, should have recalled Signorelli’s model, which was delivered to Urbino while he was growing up in the city. Like his father, Raphael knew and admired Signorelli, and the period of closest contact between the two seems to have been in the years 1500–3.⁸⁹ It may have been the older artist who recommended Raphael to patrons in Città di Castello when he left the city in 1498 after an extended stay there in the mid‐1490s. In any event, Raphael stepped into Signorelli’s shoes in the city and painted three altarpieces for a group of patrons whose peers had been commissioning work from Signorelli until his departure in 1498. Raphael’s principal debt to Signorelli was a dynamism that he could not find in Perugino, but the only place in the Gavari altarpiece where he could incorporate this lesson was in the figures depicted in the predella in which Signorelli’s influence has been duly detected.⁹⁰

The sculptural qualities of Christ’s body have also encouraged comparison with Benedetto da Maiano (1442–1497), for example his Christ on the Cross in the Chiesa della Madonna Bianca at Ancarano in the Valnerina near Terni.⁹¹ The unusual motif of the angel bearing two chalices might derive from a Northern source such as Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) Crucifixion from the woodcut series The Large Passion of 1497–1500. Dürer’s prints are known to have circulated in Italy from a very early date, and to have attracted the interest of artists including Raphael.

Drawings

Despite the evidence that the altarpiece was very thoroughly planned, no preparatory drawings by Raphael have been identified. At various times each of the following five sheets have been mentioned in connection with the altarpiece, but none of these proposals is convincing. The most plausible in terms of its date and style is a metalpoint drawing in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. P II 509 / WA1846.153). This was identified by Karl Parker as a study for the figure of the Magdalen but it has been noted that the figure’s gesture appears to be one of wonder or surprise, which would not have been appropriate for a saint worshipping at the foot of the Cross. The drawing is also lit from the right and not from the left as in the painting.⁹² A second drawing in the Ashmolean, which shows St Jerome with a View of Perugia (inv. P II 34 / WA1846.10), was proposed by Magherini‐Graziani, but here the positioning of the figure and its place‐specific location make the connection inherently unlikely. It looks like a stand‐alone composition and not preparatory for one figure at the foot of the Cross.⁹³ Another pen and ink drawing in Vienna (Albertina, inv. 196) studies the body of Christ and the Cross and three different attitudes for the Virgin Mary (or another holy woman). Although lit from the same direction as the Mond Crucifixion, the drawing style suggests a later date and hence a connection with an otherwise unidentified Crucifixion.⁹⁴ A fourth drawing, now in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (inv. 5085), was related to the Mond Crucifixion by Oskar Fischel, who suggested it was a study for the figure of Saint John the Evangelist. Subsequent writers linked it instead to the figure of Saint Mary Magdalene, whose hands are in a very similar position. The status of the drawing was challenged by Sylvia Ferino Pagden, who argued convincingly that it should be identified as a Kneeling Angel by the workshop of Perugino.⁹⁵ Finally, one further drawing has been suggested as having a possible connection with the altarpiece: a female head in Lille (inv. 466).⁹⁶ Although probably of the correct date, about 1502–3, and lit from the left, there is nothing else to connect the drawing with the picture and the figure type is inappropriate for the Magdalen.⁹⁷

Versions and copies

An anonymous copy after Raphael’s picture is in the Pinacoteca Comunale, Città di Castello. This picture has a provenance from S. Domenico, where it was recorded from 1829. It was presumably executed as fulfilment of the contractual requirement to supply a copy of the original to be placed on the Gavari altar in S. Domenico within two months of the picture’s sale in 1808.⁹⁸ Passavant referred to an eighteenth‐century fresco in the church of Santuario del SS.mo Crocifisso, Battaglia (near Urbania), as a copy of Raphael’s composition.⁹⁹ It is not.

A watercolour copy of the picture was made by Charlotte de Rothschild (1825–1899) between 1841 and 1845, that is, in Rome and at the time of the sales that followed Cardinal Fesch’s death.¹⁰⁰

Prints

Ludwig Grüner (1801–1882) made an engraving after Raphael’s picture. It is undated but an inscription places it in the period when the picture was in the collection of Cardinal Fesch (1808–1845, and probably after 1823 when the picture returned to Italy).¹⁰¹ Grüner lived in Rome from the mid‐1830s until his departure for London in 1841, and he published prints after Raphael from early in his career, earning a reputation as a notable expert in the study of Raphael. A print also appeared in Passavant 1872, and a photograph in Carl Ruland’s Raphael corpus dates to the period when the picture was in the Earl of Dudley’s collection.¹⁰²

Previous owners and acquisition

Within two generations Domenico Gavari’s chapel had passed down alternative family lines. By 1578 Dionira Gavari, who was the patron’s only direct heir, had married Vincenzo Giulio Andreocci (who took the alternative surname of Giulii).¹⁰³ This couple had a single daughter, Cassandra, who married Giovanni Niccolo Gualterotti; the chapel then passed by descent to Ugolino, Domenico and finally Vincenzo Gualterotti. Vincenzo di Domenico Gualterotti, a doctor, acquired full control of the picture in January 1807 as a result of an irrevocable transfer of all his property which was made by a cousin, Niccolò di Giovan Battista Gualterotti, on condition of a series of commitments including one by which Vincenzo promised to supply the donor with ‘caffè e cioccolato’ (‘coffee and chocolate’) for the rest of his life, together with the annulment of his sizeable debts and an income of 25 scudi romani per year. This agreement specifically bound Vincenzo to continuing family support for the ‘offiziatura della Cappella del SS.mo Crocifisso’ (‘officiating of the chapel of the most Holy Cross’), without forbidding the alienation of the chapel’s altarpiece (which he proceeded to do through the sale of Raphael’s painting to the agents of Cardinal Fesch in 1808 for one hundred times his annual financial commitment to Giovan Battista).¹⁰⁴

Cardinal Joseph Fesch was Napoleon’s uncle and was sent to Rome as his ambassador in 1803 (fig. 24). He quickly formed the ambition to create a collection that would inspire contemporary artists, and as early as 1804 he had initiated the process of acquiring the Gavari altarpiece for his collection. In a letter of September 1804, which was addressed to Ercole Consalvi (1757–1824; Secretary of State of the Vatican), it is evident that more than two years before Niccolò di Giovan Battista Gualterotti ceded his rights to his patrimony, the family had been approached regarding an eventual sale of Raphael’s altarpiece, and that a price of 2,000 scudi had been agreed. The initial go‐between was a ‘M. de la Borde’ (probably the antiquary Alexandre de Laborde [1773–1842], who is more famous for his travels in Spain, but also spent time in Italy and was well known in Napoleonic circles) who the cardinal had asked to go to Città di Castello to examine the proposed acquisition. In his letter Fesch commented on the picture’s physical state and his intention to transfer the painting from panel to canvas. He asked Consalvi to see if Pope Pius VII (1742–1823) could persuade the Bishop of Città di Castello, Paolo Bartoli (1755–1810), who held the diocese from 1801 until his death, to intervene in favour of the sale that Fesch had negotiated.¹⁰⁵ The letter establishes that it was the cardinal’s intention to take the picture to Paris, but in its appeal to Consalvi to get behind the proposal Fesch already talks of his plan to bring the whole collection to Rome at a future date (as he did, after Napoleon’s fall), and thereby to create a gallery which ‘would be of great benefit to artists, since it would now be difficult to gather together a more complete collection’ (‘sarebbe di grandissimo giovamento agli artisti, poiché difficilmente si potrebbe ora raccogliere una serie di cose più completa’) and in which the Gavari Crucifixion, if acquired, would ‘serve to compare the works of the dawning intellect of Raphael with those perfected by [his] art’ (‘servirà per comparare le opere dell’intelletto nascente di Raffaele con quelle perfezionate dall’arte’).¹⁰⁶

At this date (1804) the Napoleonic seizures resulted in many of the most famous (later) paintings by Raphael being available for comparison in Paris, and Fesch’s intention was that his gallery would inspire artists in Paris and perhaps eventually Rome. The cardinal solicited his agents with reference to this purchase at various points in the following years;¹⁰⁷ the acquisition was finally achieved on 21 July 1808 when the picture was handed over in Città di Castello to the French painter Francois Granet (1775–1849) and Fesch’s secretary the Abbé Féaux for a further increased price of 2,500 scudi, which was to be paid by the cardinal’s intermediary, the Torlonia bank in Rome.¹⁰⁸ The Gualterotti were represented by the heads of their various branches: Ugolino di Ludovico Gualterotti, Domenico di Urbano Gualterotti, his son Vincenzo, and Niccolò di Giovan Battista Gualterotti. The delivery of the painting to Granet was recorded in a notarial act which established that the cardinal had undertaken to replace the picture with a copy which had to be supplied and placed in the chapel within two months, and that the sale had been approved by a Papal dispensation of 8 July and by the Bishop of Città di Castello (so the cardinal’s efforts had not been in vain), confirmed by a letter of 12 July.¹⁰⁹ At the point when the Pope finally authorised the sale of the picture, Rome was occupied by French troops who would subsequently detain him in the middle of the night and transport him out of the city one year later in July 1809; the sale of the picture to the emperor’s ambassador would have been low on the Pope’s agenda and an easy favour to grant while trying to forestall much greater political dangers.¹¹⁰ The act of sale that was notarised in Città di Castello had been preceded by an agreement made in Rome, which was drawn up by a notary (Carlo Maria Sommaini) on 11 July, and a further obligation of 15 July.

The picture was sent to France within a few weeks,¹¹¹ and was displayed in the cardinal’s house in the Rue du Mont‐Blanc (now Rue de Chausée d’Antin), Paris.¹¹² The cardinal’s influence evaporated after the fall of Napoleon, and in 1823 his pictures began to be sent back to Rome, where he lived out his days in the Palazzo Falconieri on the Via Giulia.¹¹³ The Crucifixion was displayed with 60 other paintings in the Camera detta di Raffaelle, and it can be seen in the background of an anonymous portrait of Cardinal Fesch, which is now in the Musée National du Chateau at Fontainebleau (fig. 24).¹¹⁴ The picture was also described on the second floor of the Palazzo Falconieri by an unidentified correspondent ‘J.M.’ in a letter of October 1834: ‘dans la 4me [salle], le Christ en croix, avec saint Jérome et saint l’évangeliste, par Raphaël encore élève du Pérugin’.¹¹⁵

Laments by local authors in Città di Castello in the 1820s and 1830s had no impact, but did offer comment on the circumstances by which Raphael’s last remaining altarpiece in the Umbrian town had been alienated.¹¹⁶ Following the death of Cardinal Fesch on 13 May 1839 his 16,000‐plus works of art were inventoried and then offered for sale. In the 1839 inventory the Crucifixion was valued at 4,000 scudi, but this estimate was subsequently increased to 6,000 and the picture eventually sold for 10,000 scudi in 1845.¹¹⁷ In London, Sir Charles Eastlake (1793–1865) alerted Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850) to the probability of a coming sale on 26 December 1843, less than a month after Peel (Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury) had appointed him Keeper of the National Gallery.¹¹⁸ Eastlake was familiar with Fesch’s collection following his long residence in the city between 1816 and 1830. Eastlake, who was particularly keen that the Gallery should bid for the picture, had approached William Woodburn (1778–about 1860), the oldest of the four Woodburn brothers, with whom he was on very friendly terms and who had largely retired from picture dealing. Peel approved of Eastlake’s plan to engage Woodburn to act at any public sale on 20 February 1844, and Woodburn agreed.¹¹⁹ This was the first occasion on which the National Gallery made a serious attempt to purchase anything outside Great Britain. In his first proper report on the Fesch collection of 22 February 1844, Woodburn wrote of the Crucifixion: ‘No. 700 The Crucifixion Raphael after a careful examination I cannot regard it as a work of that master, notwithstanding the mention in the catalogue of it having been painted by him per la Citta di Castello. I think it is Perugino’, and he valued it at £800.¹²⁰ On 5 March, presumably having been informed that Eastlake had plans to bid for it and having been authorised to bid up to £2,000, Woodburn wrote that he felt ‘great repugnance’ at the idea of offering this much for it but added that he would give it ‘another inspection’.¹²¹ Woodburn’s negative opinion was supported by that of his friend Lord Ashburton (1774–1848), who had seen the painting with Woodburn in Rome and wrote to Eastlake from Florence that, although connoisseurs rated it very highly, ‘to my eye it is a hard dry picture the merits of which are beyond my comprehension’.¹²² Eastlake must have written a full and authoritative account of the painting to Woodburn, who conceded in a letter of 31 March 1844 that the ‘early age of Raphael’ explained the painting’s character.¹²³

It is curious to note that, although Woodburn was certainly one of the most knowledgeable connoisseurs in Britain, and so regarded by Eastlake, his understanding of the early phases of Italian art (and his knowledge of Vasari) was so limited. He was far more concerned to acquire a painting by Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709) at the Fesch sale.¹²⁴

Woodburn kept in touch concerning the changing dates of the sale, which was eventually scheduled for 17 March 1845 (and following days), and on 24 March he asked for authority to bid higher, reporting on the arrival in Rome of other interested parties with larger lines of credit.¹²⁵ Having missed a few days, Woodburn reported on 5 May that ‘I shall be at my post’ when the Rembrandt and Raphael are sold, but by 15 May he wrote that the sale had concluded and commented on the machinations of the cardinal’s heirs in the saleroom as follows: ‘St John the Baptist Preaching was decided at 14,000 scudi, the Crucifixion Raphael 10,000 scudi. Had the sale been fairly conducted I believe I should have got that picture, for the Prince de Canino and Mr George [drove] it up to that sum’.¹²⁶ On paper the Crucifixion was acquired by the Principe di Canino (Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte [1803–1857], 2nd Prince of Canino, the son of Lucien Bonaparte [1775–1840] and so great‐nephew and heir to the cardinal), for 10,000 scudi as part of a block purchase of 117 works. This amounted to the picture being ‘bought in’, since Charles Lucien had become the principal heir and executor of the Fesch estate with the death in July 1844 of his uncle (and Napoleon’s brother) Joseph Bonaparte (1768–1844). This price was outside Woodburn’s remit to negotiate (10,000 scudi = approximately £2,200), and a rival London dealer was by then involved. William Buchanan (1777–1864) informed the Trustees of the Gallery in early August that he had ‘control of the sale of the picture by Raffaelle, now in the possession of the heirs of the late Cardinal Fesch’ and Eastlake was instructed by the Trustees ‘to ascertain the price at which this picture may be acquired for the National Gallery’.¹²⁷ It is likely that Buchanan was the agent by whom, or through whom, the painting was acquired by Lord Ward, since the latter would have been unlikely to have been personally involved in negotiations with the Bonapartes and was in any case not in Italy in this period. Lord Ward completed his acquisition of the picture from the Principe di Canino in 1847, and it was exported from Italy and imported into England.¹²⁸

William Ward (1817–1885) succeeded his father as 11th Baron Ward in 1835. The 10th Baron (1781–1835) had recently inherited a huge fortune (largely coal and iron production, and landholdings) from his cousin John Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley (1781–1833), and this title was recreated in 1860 when the 11th Baron was created 2nd Earl of Dudley and Viscount Ednam. Educated at Eton, and then at Christ Church and Trinity College, Oxford, he spent much of the 1840s in Italy.¹²⁹ The picture’s arrival in London in 1847 was noted in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and also attracted the attention of Lady Eastlake (1809–1893) on a visit to ‘Lord Ward’s gallery of pictures’ in May 1849.¹³⁰ The collection of Lord Ward was displayed (free to all) in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, for one year from 1 May 1851, and among the comments made at the time was that the National Gallery had nothing quite like it.¹³¹ The Athenaeum commented on the display in the Egyptian Hall in 1851 as follows: Among the pictures here assembled are some which we might rather have expected to find in a great national collection,‐ secured as connecting links in that chronologic chain which we have so constantly advocated as necessary to the complete teaching of such institutions. Our National Trustees, however, appoint no agents abroad,‐ and lose opportunities at home: while private individuals, better instructed, secure what the nation ought to possess. Of this kind … ‘The Crucifixion’ by Raffaelle is of great importance … If not of great interest pictorially,‐ it is so because of the place which it occupies in the history of the great artist’s career.¹³² The picture was also recorded in Lord Ward’s Park Lane collection by Gustav Waagen,¹³³ and in the second volume of Eastlake’s Materials for a History of Oil Painting;¹³⁴ a photograph by Caldesi, Blanford & Co. (RCIN 850579) was included in Ruland’s Raphael corpus in 1876.¹³⁵

When the Earl of Dudley died in 1885 his estate was valued at £1,026,000, and his heirs embarked on a major sale of his pictures. The pictures were sold on 25 June 1892 and Raphael’s altarpiece was acquired by Ludwig Mond (1839–1909) and Henriette Hertz (1846–1913), who purchased pictures together at this date, often on the basis of advice from Jean Paul Richter (1847–1937).¹³⁶ Mond was an industrial chemist and founder of ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries); Hertz was a school friend of his wife Frida Löwenthal (1847–1923), and became an almost ever‐present companion of Ludwig and Frida. The financial arrangements are not easy to establish, but it seems that Hertz had been an early investor with Mond and although he paid for this purchase (and most but not all of their joint acquisitions), she clearly described the picture as a joint initiative based on her decision/recommendation. Hertz wrote an account of the sale in which she explained that they had not intended to bid on the picture, and only on the morning of the sale had visited the South Kensington Museum and convinced themselves that the Colonna Altarpiece (about 1504; now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York), which was displayed in the South Kensington Museum from 1886 to 1896, was superior and that they would try and acquire this picture at a future date. They were late getting to the saleroom at Christie’s and had to stand throughout the auction, which lasted four hours. It was at this time that Hertz – who describes the picture with great sensitivity – was so struck by the gaze of Saint John that she convinced herself he was speaking to her and saying ‘I’m coming to you!’.¹³⁷ Mond paid £11,130, a price that Hertz judged to be almost low (‘fast geringen Preis’) and much cheaper than the Ansidei Madonna, which had been acquired by the National Gallery seven years earlier with a government grant of £75,000 – this contrast was widely drawn at once in comments published by Gustavo Frizzoni (1840–1919) and Otto von Schleinitz (1839–1916).¹³⁸ The acquisition of the painting by Mond provoked some chatter in Italy,¹³⁹ possibly because Adolfo Venturi (1856–1941) had been trying to purchase the picture for the Italian state.¹⁴⁰ The reaction in England was more muted; in July 1892 Mond offered the picture on loan to the National Gallery, but the Director, Frederic Burton (1816–1900), rejected the offer, possibly because the proposed loan was for less than 12 months (late July 1892–late April 1893),¹⁴¹ but prior to the sale Burton had dismissed the picture as not ‘a desirable acquisition for the National Gallery although it was undoubtedly a genuine work’.¹⁴² The joint collection of Mond and Hertz was divided into lists that formed the basis of two separate collections at a summit in March 1907 on board a steam yacht (the S.Y. Emerald, which was then owned by Sir Christopher Furness, MP, was 212 feet long and the epitome of modern luxury shipbuilding; she was subsequently completely destroyed by fire having been boarded by militant suffragettes in December 1913). Richter played an important role in these debates and his diary records how he discussed the division with Mond alone, and then with Hertz. They also considered the idea of a gallery housing all their Italian pictures at Cologne. Richter recorded that it was a Sunday, that the weather was good and the sea air was invigorating. They passed Giglio and Elba, Montecristo and Piombino as they considered the future of the collection. The final result saw the Crucifixion remain in Mond’s collection at The Poplars (now demolished) in Regent’s Park, London, while other paintings were defined as Hertz’s and formed the basis of her bequest to the Italian state in 1913.¹⁴³ Mond was also planning his legacy at this date, and died two years later; the picture was listed as no. 9 in a list of pictures in a codicil to his will of 26 November 1908 and was formally bequeathed with 41 other pictures to the National Gallery in 1924 (a year after Frida’s death – she controlled the inheritance until that date) where it is known as the Mond Crucifixion.¹⁴⁴ It was initially displayed together with his other paintings in the Mond Room, which is still named after him; in the 1950s the Mond family and the National Gallery agreed that instead of keeping the pictures together they should be distributed throughout the Gallery and the Mond Crucifixion now hangs with the other Raphaels in the collection.

Provenance

Commissioned by Domenico Gavari for the chapel of Saint Jerome in the church of San Domenico, Città di Castello. By descent from the Gavari family, along with patronage of the chapel, to Vincenzo di Domenico Gualterotti, by whom sold in July 1808 to Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763–1839). Transferred to the Cardinal’s residence on the Rue du Mont‐Blanc (now Rue de Chausée d’Antin), Paris until 1823 when Fesch returned to Italy settling in Rome at the Palazzo Falconieri on the Via Giulia, where the painting was displayed with 60 others in the ‘Camera detta di Raffaelle’. Inventoried and valued after Fesch’s death and offered for sale in May 1845. Despite efforts to purchase the painting by Sir Charles Eastlake, Keeper of the National Gallery (and later Director) through the dealer William Woodburn (1771/2–1860), the painting was acquired by the Principe di Canino, Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte (1803–1857), great‐nephew and heir to the cardinal. This amounted to the picture being ‘bought in’, since Charles Lucien had become the principal heir and executor of the Fesch estate. Acquired through the dealer William Buchanan (1777–1864) by William, Lord Ward (1817–1885), later 1st Earl of Dudley, in 1847. Sold with his collection on 24 June 1892 when acquired by Ludwig Mond (1839–1909) and Henriette Hertz (1846–1913). Bequeathed by Mond, with 41 other pictures, to the National Gallery in 1924.

Exhibitions

London 1851–2 (no catalogue); Manchester 1857 (159, provisional catalogue), (123, definitive catalogue); London 1871 (307); London 1892 (151); London 2004–5 (27); London 2006; London 2022 (4).

Later framing

For the picture’s original frame, see ‘The Gavari Chapel in S. Domenico’ above. The picture is presumed to have been reframed in the seventeenth century when its predella was removed, and again when it entered the Fesch collection. When the Crucifixion entered the National Gallery in 1924 it was in a rectangular frame with large spandrels and elaborate cartouches; this does not appear to be the same frame in which it was displayed in the Fesch collection (fig. 23).¹⁴⁵ In 1929 Lord Melchett (1868–1930) offered to pay for the reframing of the Mond Crucifixion, and this gilded arch‐topped frame is in storage at the National Gallery (F20559).¹⁴⁶ The current frame (F3943) was acquired in Rome in 1965–6 by the Director of the Gallery, Philip Hendy (1900–1980). It was originally rectangular and was adapted to an arched top by the London frame‐makers Arnold Wiggins & Sons. It is in the style of an Italian seventeenth‐century cassetta frame.¹⁴⁷

Appendix 1¹⁴⁸
Letter from Cardinal Fesch to Ercole Consalvi, 23 September 1804

23 Septembre 1804 S.E.M. le Secrétaire. Parlai a V.E. giorni sono della proposta fattami di comprare un quadro della prima maniera di Raffaello che trovasi nella chiesa dei Domenicani di Città di Castello. Questo quadro devorato dai vermini è ora in due pezzi. Non si puote più riparare che levando la pittura della tavola e nello stato dove si trova non si potrà guadagnare per le arti che inviandolo a Parigi dove vi sono uomini periti che hanno fatto simili operazioni sulli quadri trasportati da Roma che erano in tavola.

Lo stato della questione si riduce ad ottenere al Santo Padre che incarichi M[onsignor]e Vescovo di Castello per conoscere sulla necessità di detta vendita a che distribuisca frà i padroni ed i frati li due mila scudi offerti da me giacchè non ho voluto stare alla domanda dei primi che l’offrivano per 1500 scudi, e perché non si parlasse su tal affare ho portato la somma a 2000, sebbene ne conosca il quadro et sebbene M. de la Borde che pregai di portarsi in Città di Castello mi dica esser detto quadro rovinate, ed eziandio dipinto avanti di studiare nella Scuola del Peruggino ed appena sortito da Urbino.

Questo quadro sarà ridotto da me in buonissimo stato e servirà per comparare le opere dell’intelletto nascente di Raffaele con quelle perfezionate dall’arte.

Io non credo di far torto alli stabilimenti delle arti in Roma di portar via qualche quadro per completare la mia numerosissima collezzione, e sinceramente parlando credo che Roma si guadagnerà moltissimo perché se il mio governo decide il mio ritorno in questa Città, non potro più non decidermi a portar meco tutti gli oggetti d’arte che possedo, ed tale avvenimento potra far qui stabilire la mia galleria che sarebbe di grandissimo giovamento agli artisti, poiché difficilmente si potrebbe ora raccogliere // una serie di cose più completa, e non vi è dubbio che alla mia morte il Governo Romano tratterà di acquistarla coi miei eredi a condizioni decenti. Se poi non ritorno, non faccio alcun torto, atteso che non porterò quadri di primi Autori o di prima Classe che mi si offrivano trasportati in Firenze, Salvo del Raffaele sudetto. Prego l’S.P. di leggere la qui acclusa memo[ria] e se non reppugna sommamente di rimettere l’afare a M[onsignor]e Vescovo di Castello per decidere definitivamente, atteso che il tempo è breve, e conter[ò] di farlo partire per Firenze da dove sarebbe trasportato a Parigi co’ miei equipaggi.

Gradisca i miei ossequiosi rispetti mentre le bacci[o] umilissamente le mani.

Appendix 2¹⁴⁹
Diary entry by Henriette Hertz, May to July 1892

Am 25sten Mai war ich in London und verbli[eb] dort bis zum 26 sten Juli – diese zwei Monate vergingen in Kunststudien Ankäufe u Gesellschaften. Das Bemerkenswerte in der Kunst waren Ankäufe von bedeutenden Bilder die nun unsere Samml[ung]zieren, unser künstliches Italien! … Der zweite spätere Verkauf war die berümt [sic] Gallerie des Herzogs of Dudley – die wiederum viele Hauptbilder aus der Sammlung des Cardinal Fesch in Rom enthielt: Das Hauptaugenmerk war eine groſze Kreuzigung die erste bedeutende Composition des jungen Raphaels farbenprächtig aber noch ganz im Style seiner beiden Meister Perugino u. Pinturicchio – Trotzdem voll von der Jugend einer höchst entwickelten Künstlernatur die mit Gewalt ein inneres Leben, u. eine innere Anschauung zur Geltung bringen will, für die ihm die Mittel noch nicht gereift sind. – Der Kopf des Cristus hätte kein Perugino malen können, nicht die zerrissene Trauer eines ersten Jünglingschmerzes welche den Johannes zu einer Poesie macht – u. nicht den herzbrechenden Schmerz, in kindlicher Uebertriebenheit eines nicht Gekannten, in der Mutter Züge. – Einen Raphael zu erwerben dachten wir nicht, u ein so groſzer – ganz jugendlich im ersten Stadium // der Entwicklung schien uns nur für eine Gallerie geeignet – wir betrachteten nur – einen überaus herrlichen Crivelli u. Luini u. Garofalo, ein Tizian – Jedenfalls wollten wir dem Verkauf beiwonen [sic]. Am frühen Morgen gingen wir in das South Kensington Museum, Ludwig, unser Freund u. Richter. Dort hängt ein groſzer reifer Raphael der dem Besitzer Farnesino gehört einem de Castra der sie einst dem König von Neapel abgeluchst hatte – Alle Drei fanden das Werk so viel bedeutender daſz wir den kindlichen des Dudley aufgaben in der Hoffnung diesen einst erwerben zu können. So gingen wir ruhigen Herzens in den Verkauf. Da wir spät kamen, muſzten wir hinter den Auctionator stehen – Und da standen wir von 1 Ur bis 5 Ur – Als ich mich dorthin pflanzte u rechts schaute begegnete ich dem Schmerzensblicke des Johannes – u. ich kann es mir nicht erklären – ich konnte den Blick nicht abwenden trotzdem er gleich mit Bestimmtheit sagte: ich komme zu Dir! Und ich war sicher er war für uns gemeint – Und auch begriff ich nicht wie ich nur einen Augenblick diesem seelenvollen leuchtenden Bilde das in South Kensington vorziehen konnte – Später erfur [sic] ich daſz es einem Fremden ebenso mit ihm er‐ // gangen war – Kaum wunderte ich mich daſz das Bild uns zugefallen – u ich möchte sagen zu einem fast geringen Meister Preis für solch einen Meister – Ich war ser glücklich das Bild unter meinen liebenden verständniſzinnigen Augen zu haben – Wir kauften noch andere liebe Italiener – aber dieses Menschheitheilige [sic] Drama von einer so reinen Knabenseele in der Frühreife des Genies aufgefaſzt war doch das Berauschendste!

On the 25th of May I was in London, and I stayed there until the 26th of July – these two months I passed with studying art, purchases and social engagements. The best part, on the art front, was buying the important paintings that are now in our collection, in our artificial Italy! The first sale was that of the rich businessman Leyland // We bought a Luca Signorello/Genga and a Crivelli … // … The second sale was that of the famous Gallery of the Earl of Dudley – which included many masterpieces from the collection of Cardinal Fesch in Rome: the most remarkable work was a large Crucifixion, the first important composition by the young Raphael, well‐coloured but still fully in the style of his two masters Perugino and Pinturicchio – nevertheless full of the youth of a highly developed artistic persona who was trying his best to bring out an inner life and inner vision, even if his methods had not yet matured. Perugino could never have painted the head of Christ, nor the extreme grief of a young man’s first knowledge of pain that makes the figure of John into a work of poetry – and not the heartbreaking agony of the mother, a childlike exaggeration of something unknown. – We never thought we would acquire a Raphael, and such a major one too – fully within the first phase of his youthful evolution // the work seemed for us only suitable for a gallery – we were only looking at a very beautiful Crivelli and Luini and Garofolo and a Titian, yet we were determined to see the sale. Early in the morning we went to South Kensington Museum with Ludwig, our friend and Richter. There we found a fully mature Raphael which had belonged to a Farnesino, one of the de Castro who was once able to pry it from the King of Naples. All three found the work so much more meaningful that we gave up the childish one of Dudley in the hope of being about to acquire this one. So we went without fear to the sale. Since we came late we had to stand behind the auctioneer, and we stood like that from 1 to 5 o’clock. From where I stood, when I looked to the right I met St John’s gaze, so full of pain, and I can’t explain it but I couldn’t turn away, even if he was at the same time clearly saying ‘I’m coming to you!’. And I was sure he was meant for us, and I couldn’t understand why I could even for one moment prefer the South Kensington painting to this luminous work, so full of soul. Later I learned that the same thing happened to someone else. I wasn’t surprised that the painting went to us, and I must say almost at a bargain price for such a master. I was very happy to have the painting under my loving and knowing eyes. We also bought other cherished Italian works. But this holy drama of humanity, by such a pure, youthful soul, [written above the line] in the early blossom of genius was indeed the most exhilarating!¹⁵⁰

Notes

The author is grateful to the following for their assistance in the preparation of this entry: Maria Alambritis, Rachel Billinge, Sybille Ebert‐Schifferer, Christa Gardner von Teuffel, Dillian Gordon, Mara Hofmann, Nicholas Penny, Carol Plazzotta, Dietrich Seybold, Marika Spring, Matthias Wivel, Kathleen Wren Christian, and L’équipe des Archives historiques du diocèse de Lyon.