Madonna & Child
Enthroned with Saints
Raphael
Artist: Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio or Santi)
(Italian, Urbino 1483–1520 Rome)
Date: ca. 1504
Medium: Oil and gold on wood
Raphael painted this altarpiece around 1504/5 for the small Franciscan convent of Sant' Antonio in Perugia. It hung in a part of the church reserved for the nuns, who are thought to have insisted on some of its conservative features, such as the elaborately clothed Christ Child.
By contrast, the grave male saints are among the earliest evidence of Raphael’s study of the work of Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo in Florence.
The Museum also owns a scene from the base (predella).
The Colonna family in Rome acquired the altarpiece in 1678, and it is sometimes referred to by their name.
Its purchase by the New York financier J. Pierpont Morgan received world press coverage.
The frame is of the period but not original.
Dimensions:
Main panel, overall 67 7/8 x 67 7/8 in.
(172.4 x 172.4 cm),
painted surface 66 3/4 x 66 1/2 in. (169.5 x 168.9
cm);
lunette, overall 29 1/2 x 70 7/8 in. (74.9 x 180 cm),
painted
surface 25 1/2 x 67 1/2 in. (64.8 x 171.5 cm)
The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (Young Baptist and Saints Peter, Catherine, Lucy, and Paul), also known as the Colonna Altarpiece, is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, executed c. 1503-1505. It is housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City. It is the only altarpiece by Raphael in the United States.
The collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art also contains a painting of the Agony in the Garden from the predella of the altarpiece. Other panels from the predella can be found in the collections of the National Gallery, London, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in Boston, and Dulwich Picture Gallery, in London. A preparatory drawing by Raphael for the composition of the agony in the garden is in the collection of the Morgan Library New York.
The pieces of the predella were separated from the altarpiece and sold to Queen Christina of Sweden, from where they reached the Orleans Collection,
while the main panels themselves were eventually sold to the
aristocratic Colonna family in Rome, from whom the altarpiece takes its
name. The Altarpiece was the last Raphael altar in private hands when J.P. Morgan purchased it in the early 20th century for a record price.
How Exactly Do You Dismantle a Raphael Altarpiece?
Keith Christiansen
March 26, 2018
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