The ''Madonna of the Pinks'' (c. 1506 – 1507, it, La Madonna dei garofani) is an early devotional painting usually attributed to Italian Renaissance master
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
. It is painted in
oils
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
on fruitwood and now hangs in the
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
.
Subject matter
The painting depicts a youthful
Virgin Mary
Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
playing with the
Christ child
The Christ Child, also known as Divine Infant, Baby Jesus, Infant Jesus, the Divine Child, Child Jesus, the Holy Child, Santo Niño, and to some as Señor Noemi refers to Jesus Christ from his nativity to age 12.
The four canonical gospels, a ...
and handing him
carnation
''Dianthus caryophyllus'' (), commonly known as the carnation or clove pink, is a species of ''Dianthus''. It is likely native to the Mediterranean region but its exact range is unknown due to extensive cultivation for the last 2,000 years.Med ...
s. (The Italian title, ''La Madonna dei garofani'' actually means The Madonna of the Carnation.) These flowers, whose botanical name is ''
dianthus
''Dianthus'' () is a genus of about 340 species of flowering plants in the family Caryophyllaceae, native mainly to Europe and Asia, with a few species in north Africa and in southern Africa, and one species (''D. repens'') in arctic North Ameri ...
'' (
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
for ‘flower of God’), are a premonition of
Christ's Passion – according to Christian legend, the flower first appeared when the Virgin wept at the
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...
. The event takes place in a dimly-lit domestic setting influenced by
Netherlandish
The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...
art. The composition is based closely on the ''
Benois Madonna
The ''Benois Madonna'', otherwise known as the ''Madonna and Child with Flowers'', is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. One of two Madonnas begun by Leonardo in October 1478, ...
'' by
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
, although the colour scheme of blues and greens that link the Virgin with the landscape is Raphael's own. Through the arched window is a landscape with a ruined building, symbolising the collapse of the pagan world at the birth of Christ.
Provenance
The subject matter and size of the painting, little larger than a
Book of Hours
The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscrip ...
, suggest that it may have been intended as a portable aid to prayer. The identity of its original patron is unknown, although an inventory from the 1850s suggests that it was commissioned for Maddalena degli Oddi, a member of a prominent
Perugia
Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia.
The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...
n family, after she had taken holy orders.
In the 19th century it was property of the painter
Vincenzo Camuccini
Vincenzo Camuccini (22 February 1771 – 2 September 1844) was an Italian painter of Neoclassic histories and religious paintings. He was considered the premier academic painter of his time in Rome.
Biography
Camuccini was born in Rome, and fir ...
.
Attribution to Raphael
Only in 1991 was the painting identified as a genuine Raphael, by the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
scholar
Nicholas Penny
Sir Nicholas Beaver Penny (born 21 December 1949) is a British art historian. From 2008 to 2015 he was director of the National Gallery in London.
Early life
Penny was educated at Shrewsbury School before he studied English at St Catharine ...
. Although Raphael scholars were aware of the existence of the work, which had hung in
Alnwick Castle
Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a G ...
since 1853, they considered it merely the best of several copies of a lost original. After a major public appeal the Madonna of the Pinks was bought in 2004 by the National Gallery from the
Duke of Northumberland
Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke ...
for £34.88 million, with contributions from the
Heritage Lottery Fund
The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom.
History
The fund's predecessor bodies were ...
and the
National Art Collections Fund
Art Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund) is an independent membership-based British charity, which raises funds to aid the acquisition of artworks for the nation. It gives grants and acts as a channel for many gifts and bequests, as ...
. To justify the expenditure it went on a nationwide tour to
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
Cardiff
Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...
,
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
and
Barnard Castle
Barnard Castle (, ) is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, Northern England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automato ...
.
In the summer of 2006, Caruzzi et al. published online research which alleged that
Nicholas Penny
Sir Nicholas Beaver Penny (born 21 December 1949) is a British art historian. From 2008 to 2015 he was director of the National Gallery in London.
Early life
Penny was educated at Shrewsbury School before he studied English at St Catharine ...
's attribution and the associated defence of it published by the National Gallery are based on incomplete analysis, untenable arguments and misinterpretations. In 2007 the posthumous publication of
James Beck
Stanley James Carroll Beck (21 February 1929 – 6 August 1973) was an English actor who played the role of Private Walker, a cockney spiv, in the BBC sitcom ''Dad's Army'' from the show's beginning in 1968 until his sudden death in 1973.
Ea ...
, ''From Duccio to Raphael: Connoisseurship in Crisis'' disputed the attribution of the National Gallery's painting ''Madonna of the Pinks'' to Raphael.
Brian Sewell
Brian Alfred Christopher Bushell Sewell (; 15 July 1931 – 19 September 2015) was an English art critic. He wrote for the ''Evening Standard'' and had an acerbic view of conceptual art and the Turner Prize. ''The Guardian'' described him as " ...
notably criticised the painting of being of low quality and possibly forged, pointing out how the Madonna's right leg seems disconnected from her body.
Painting materials
The palette is relatively limited compared to other works by Raphael. The sky and the blue drapery of the Virgin are painted in natural
ultramarine
Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afgh ...
and
azurite
Azurite is a soft, deep-blue copper mineral produced by weathering of copper ore deposits. During the early 19th century, it was also known as chessylite, after the Type locality (geology), type locality at Chessy, Rhône, Chessy-les-Mines near ...
, he further employed
lead-tin yellow,
malachite
Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures ...
and
verdigris
Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, copper-based pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass. The technical literature is ambiguous as to its chemical composition. Some sources refer to "neutral verdigris" as copper(II) ac ...
.
Raphael, Madonna of the Pinks
ColourLex
See also
*List of paintings by Raphael
The following is a list of paintings by Italian Renaissance painter Raphael. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. He was enormously prolific, despite his early death at ...
References
National Gallery, London press release upon acquisition of the painting in 2004
* ''2004 Review: The Annual Report of the National Art Collections Fund''
Article and link to paper by Desiderio Z. Caruzzi on the attribution of the ''Madonna of the Pinks'' to Raphael
Notes
External links
*
*
{{Raphael
Paintings of the Madonna and Child by Raphael
Collections of the National Gallery, London
1500s paintings
Nude art
Paintings of the Madonna and Child