19th century, from Raphael, Madonna with Child

19th century, by Raphael
Madonna with Child
Oil on canvas, 66 x 54 cm - with frame 86 x 72 cm

This painting depicts the Madonna with Child, a nineteenth-century derivation from Raphael's Bridgewater Madonna, preserved in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, dating back to around 1507.
The canvas, attributed to the artist's mature Florentine period, was part of the Seiguelay, d'Orléans and, from 1792 to 1945 Ellesmere of London collections, entering the Scottish museum from the Bridgewater legacy, from which it took its current name.
There are some drawings referable to a regression study on the work at the Albertina in Vienna and at the British Museum in London, which show a lively tangle of strokes with chiaroscuro effects derived from the example of Leonardo.
In the Raphaelesque model on a dark background, in which some elements of a room are barely visible (a niche with an open door, a bench), Maria holds the Child in her arms who struggles to the left. The two figures are harmoniously opposed, characterized by an opposite and divergent motion, with a concatenation of gestures (the arms of the Child that take the veil of the Mother, the hands of Mary that touch the body of the Son) that generates a serpentine movement .
The memory of Michelangelo Buonarroti's Tondo Taddei is evident. The colors, which are intense and brilliant, effectively evoke the volume of the figures emerging from the shadows.
Radiographs have verified how in the first project the Madonna was in the background of a landscape, as typical of the other Madonnas of the time, but it was soon modified by the same author, probably to increase the contrast between lights and shadows and therefore the volumetric and monumental rendering. so much so that in the work presented here it is completely eliminated in favor of a dark background.