Raffaello (1483-1520)
Madonna Terrranuova (Mary with the Child, John the Baptist and a Holy Boy)
c.1505
Oil on poplar wood, diameter 88.7 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
SIGNATURE / INSCRIPTION: Ribbon (EC)CE AGNIVS (DE)
Of the five paintings of the Virgin Mary by Raphael owned by the Gemäldegalerie, the Madonna Terranuova (named for the collection from which it was acquired), which dates from circa 1505, and hence from the beginning of the artist’s Florentine period, is the largest and most monumental panel, and the only one in tondo form. Together with the Madonna Conestabile (Saint Petersburg, Hermitage), which dates from 1504, it is one of Raphael‘s earliest paintings in this format. It can be traced to an earlier pen-and-ink drawing by Raphael (Lille) from the earlier Umbrian period, which shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with the young John the Baptist; here they are flanked by two background figures: an angel (Michael) and Saint Joseph. In the drawing, then, there was no space for a landscape. The drawing was later cut down, becoming semicircular above, and a large section is missing on the lower right, which originally showed the Christ Child’s legs, the Virgin’s lower left arm, and Joseph’s hand. Researchers regarded a contemporary copy of the drawing now in Berlin as preserving the original, pristine condition of the compositional drawing in Lille, but the differences between the two should not be overlooked. In the Berlin drawing, the Virgin’s lower left arm emerges from her cloak, the hand open, in a way that resembles the painting. In the Lille drawing, in contrast, the cloak does not conceal Mary’s now visible upper arm. Similar deviations are noticeable with regard to Joseph’s hands. Given the deviations in the Berlin copy in relation to the original drawing, it cannot be simply assumed that the Berlin version reflects the missing parts of the original drawing in Lille. Instead, the Berlin drawing probably represents a different stage of compositional development, or may be a variant from the hand of an unknown Umbrian artist. A fragment of the cartoon showing the head of the Virgin is found in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett.
The pictorial conception corresponds to an Umbrian compositional schema dating from the late 15th century, one adopted by Raphael from Perugino (1493; Paris, Musée du Louvre) and adapted in the early Berlin panel (1502; no. 145). After deciding to use the tondo form for the Madonna Terranuova, he omitted the flanking saints, which must now have seemed to him old-fashioned, dividing the background of the composition horizontally precisely at the lateral axis into a lower half, which is covered by a balustrade, and an upper half, which displays a landscape with an expansive sky, against which the head and shoulder contours of the Virgin are set off sharply. By juxtaposing the infant John the Baptist on the left with the figure of another, half-nude boy with halo on the right as a counterpart, Raphael creates the type of pyramidal or triangular composition he would often use subsequently.
Noticeable in the soft sfumato, the extroverted gestures, and the developed spatiality is the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, who had returned to Florence from Milan in 1503. His art made a deep impression on Raphael, who borrowed the motif of the Virgin’s gracefully outstretched left hand from Leonardo‘s Madonna of the Yarnwinder (1501; the best version, possibly an original, is owned by the Duke of Buccleuch). Raphael introduces this motif only during a later working stage. Infrared reflectography shows the initial preliminary drawing of the left-hand. It “was supposed to rest on the thigh, gently supporting the foot of the child”. (J. Meyer zur Capellen 1994)| (Gemäldegalerie)