After Raphael Sanzio, 19th century

Italian school of the 19th century. After RAFAEL SANZIO (Urbino, 1483 - Rome, 1520)
"Madonna of the Chair".
Oil on canvas.
The frame is missing.
Measurements: 73 x 73 cm; 42 x 92 x 8 cm (frame).

The painting is a version of one of the best known works of the great Renaissance artist Raphael Sanzio, "Raphael", the "Madonna of the chair", preserved in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It is, in fact, a group of the Madonna and Child in arms, accompanied by St. John child, a representation that combines the devotional character with the tenderness evoked by the mother with the two little ones. This double character explains the extraordinary success of this type of representation throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Although in many occasions the group of characters is placed in a landscape, and often accompanied by other figures, such as St. Anne or St. Joseph, Raphael chooses to place his characters in an interior of which, however, he does not offer us any details, limiting himself to setting the scene with a sturdy carved wooden chair that has given, later, its popular name to the piece. According to an anecdote handed down by various historians, Raphael would have been inspired for this beautiful figure of Mary in a humble peasant woman who would have seen tenderly embrace her son on a walk in Velletri. Struck by the girl's beauty, he would have immediately made a chalk sketch that would later serve him for this and other compositions. Raphael's work is in tondo format and was painted approximately between 1513-1514, during the artist's Roman period. It shows a new warmth, both in the composition and in the chromatic range, different from that used throughout the artist's Florentine period, probably influenced, among others, by Titian.