Alba Madonna

The Alba Madonna is a circular composition, or tondo, painted by Raphael around 1510, at the height of the Italian Renaissance. It shows the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus and John the Baptist in an open countryside that looks typically Italian. John holds a cross towards the child, who reaches for it, and all three figures gaze at it, so the scene points forward to the Passion. The group sits on the left of the circle, yet the outstretched arm of the Virgin and the billowing fabric of her cloak restore the balance. The flowers scattered around the figures also carry symbolic meanings linked to humility, love, sorrow and the Passion of Christ, in keeping with the iconographic traditions of the period.

The painting was commissioned by Paolo Giovio, who apparently intended it for a church in Nocera dei Pagani, near Naples. It later passed through the collection of the Viceroy of Naples, the Marquis of Carpio, and by inheritance reached the House of Alba, from which it takes its name. After the death of the Duchess María Teresa de Silva in 1802 it was sold to diplomats and collectors in Britain and France, and in 1836 Nicholas I of Russia acquired it for the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. In 1931 the Soviet government sold it secretly to Andrew W. Mellon, who later gave it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Scholars have noted the debt to Michelangelo in the monumental figure of the Virgin and in the firmer handling of some drapery, although the faces and, above all, the children retain the softness typical of Raphael. For its balance between solemnity and tenderness, the work is generally regarded as one of the key paintings of his Roman period.

Painter

Raphael

Date

1510

Medium

oil paint, panel, transferred on canvas

Dimensions

98 × 98 cm

Museum

Andrew W. Mellon collection, Washington, D.C.

Movement

High Renaissance

Genre

religious art

Depicts

landscape, Viola, Cyclamen, sweet woodruff, Child Saint John, dandelion, Mary

Share:FacebookWhatsApp