Madona de los Ansidei

The Virgin sits high on a steep wooden throne, the Child on her lap, while John the Baptist looks up and Saint Nicholas reads. Raphael painted this altarpiece in his early twenties, and it has been counted among the greatest paintings in history.

The story behind the painting

Niccolò Ansidei commissioned the altarpiece from Raphael for his family chapel, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, in the church of San Fiorenzo in Perugia. It was painted during Raphael's Florentine period. The date is debated: it was long thought to have been begun in 1505, which fits his style at the time, strongly marked by Perugino, but close looking revealed the date 1507 on the painting. The likeliest reading is that it was started in 1505 and finished in 1507. Two predella panels stood beneath it. Saint John the Baptist Preaching survives, while the betrothal of the Virgin and a miracle of Saint Nicholas are lost.

What to look for

The Virgin sits formally on a high throne with the Child on her lap. An adult John the Baptist stands on the left and Saint Nicholas of Bari reads on the right. The throne has no arms and its steps are steep, painted for effect rather than realism, but they set off the arches above. Above the throne is inscribed Hail, Mother of Christ. The gold looks real but is entirely painted. The landscape behind is restrained, not crowded with detail, and colour is used selectively, as in the jewelled robe and the red coral chaplet. At Nicholas's feet lie three balls.

Meaning and intent

The three figures stand apart, without exchange between them, a style common to the Umbrian school and especially to Perugino, in contrast to the more natural interaction of Raphael's later Roman Madonnas. The three balls may symbolise the Trinity, or the three bags of gold Nicholas is said to have thrown through a poor man's window for his daughters. The Wikipedia article sees serenity everywhere: the Madonna's devotion to her child, the Child's trust in his mother, John's contemplation, Nicholas's spiritual knowledge, and the open sky. Raphael was about twenty three, absorbing Perugino, Donatello, Masaccio, Michelangelo and Leonardo in Florence.

Legacy

In 1763 the chapel was dismantled when San Fiorenzo was remodelled. It was later reassembled and now holds a nineteenth century copy. In 1764 the young Lord Robert Spencer bought the original as a gift for his brother, the 4th Duke of Marlborough, and at Blenheim Palace it was sometimes called the Blenheim Madonna. In 1885 the 8th Duke of Marlborough sold it to the National Gallery in London, where it hangs with the surviving predella. By 1508, when Raphael arrived in Rome aged twenty five, this altarpiece was among the works that had already made his name.