Anazao — Cowper Madonna by Raphael

Cowper Madonna by Raphael

Artist: Raphael, c. 1505

Size: 21" High x 16" Wide.

Designer canvas transfer. Giclée on canvas with protective coating. Hand stretched over wood.
Frame Description: High quality, Larson-Juhl frame in fine gold finish. Gentle, contoured scoop design, ribbed detail.
Frame Size: 3-1/2” W x 2” D. Framed and ready to hang.

Available in a floral carved gold frame 3-1/2” W x 1” D. Choose option SAC-1002 B, Carved Frame.

Raphael was in Florence from late 1504 until 1508. Seventeen images of the Virgin and Child from those few years survive today. Probably many of these works were made for the art market—images of the Madonna and Child were often given as wedding presents—rather than to fulfill a specific commission.

The Small Cowper Madonna mirrors in style and sentiment what Raphael had seen, and helped produce, in Perugino's workshop. Compare it with Perugino's own Madonna and Child, also in the Gallery's collection. The two Virgins share a graceful turn of the head and wistful expression. Compositionally, however, the two works differ significantly. Stock figures from Perugino's workshop repertoire fill his composition. Their gestures are particular, but unrelated and unexplained. In Raphael's painting, by contrast, both figures look out to the viewer, a unifying device he would have seen in terracotta reliefs by Luca Della Robbia. The figures' interlocked gestures reveal another and more important source of inspiration: Leonardo.

Artist’s Biography

Raphael
Raphael was a painter of the Italian "High Renaissance", considered one of the greatest and most popular artists of all time. Unlike Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael was to live a very short life, dying at the youthful age of 38. He was born Raffaello Santi or Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino on April 6, 1483, and received his early training in art from his father, Giovanni Santi. In 1499 he went to Perugia, in Umbria, and became a student and assistant of the painter Perugino. Raphael imitated his master closely, and their painting styles are so similar that art historians have found it difficult to determine which were painted by Raphael, and which were by his master. This was the beginning of his career as an absorber of influences. It is said of Raphael that whatever he saw, he took possession of, always growing by what was taught to him.