Madonna von Loreto

A baby, just awake, plays with his mother's veil while Joseph watches from the shadows. Copied more than a hundred times, the original was thought lost until 1979.

The story behind the painting

Raphael painted this oil on panel around 1511, and Pope Julius II commissioned it together with his own portrait. The two pictures, almost the same size, hung on pillars of Santa Maria del Popolo, at the entrance gate to Rome, on feast days. In 1591 Paolo Camillo Sfondrati, later a cardinal, removed both from the church, and in 1608 they went to Cardinal Scipione Borghese. They were still in the Borghese collection in 1693. Later the original was thought lost after the French Revolution.

What to look for

The scene is tender and intimate. The child has just woken and is playing with the Madonna's veil, while a melancholy Saint Joseph looks on from the shadows. X rays show that Joseph was painted over a window that was first behind the Madonna's shoulder, and that the position of the child's right foot was changed. The Madonna's dress, frame and the angle of her head recall the figure of Justice in the Stanza della Segnatura, painted around the same time.

Meaning and intent

The veil carries meaning: in the Meditations on the Life of Christ, Mary wraps the child in the veil from her head at the Nativity and again at the Crucifixion. Joseph's sadness may hint at foresight of what is to come. The name is a mistake. A copy at the shrine of Loreto was once thought to be the original. It has also been called the Madonna del Popolo and the Madonna of the Veil. Julius later commissioned the Sistine Madonna.

Legacy

Until 1979 the Chantilly painting was attributed to Gianfrancesco Penni. That October the Musée Condé, with the Louvre, showed the newly cleaned picture as Raphael's original, citing its quality and the x ray evidence that Joseph was added after the Virgin and child, a change only Raphael could have made. It is one of his most copied works. Théodore Richomme won a medal at the Salon of 1814 for his engraving of it.