A Mary Magdalene with dark hair, a square neckline, hands with beautiful, tapered fingers that are piercing rather than remorseful. The beautiful face is that of Chiara Fancelli, Perugino’s wife. However, according to a group of scholars, it is the hand of Raffaello Sanzio, a student of Perugino who later surpassed his master. The painting, an oil on poplar panel dated 1504, 46cm x 34cm, belongs to a private collection abroad and is the focus of a study to be published next week in the journal Open Science, Art and Science. entitled “Raphael’s Magdalene or when the student surpasses the master”. The results were expected during an international conference in Pergola (Pesaro Urbino) “Ideal Beauty – The Vision of Perfection by Raffaello Sanzio”, attended by experts such as Mother Maria Cecilia Visentin, pontifical professor specializing in religious iconography of the Order of the Servants of Mary ; Annalisa Di Maria is one of the leading international experts on Leonardo da Vinci and the Italian Renaissance, specializing in the Neoplatonic movement, and on the academic side, Professor Emeritus Jean-Charles Pomerol of the Sorbonne, former rector of the Pierre and Marie Curie University, and Andrea from Montefeltro, researcher and sculptor. For them it is “a supreme artistic achievement of the Italian Renaissance”, a rediscovered masterpiece by Raphael. There is a version of a portrait of the Magdalene (in the Palatine Gallery) authenticated by a workshop as being by Perugino, and another in the Villa Borghese. However, Raphael’s version is considered far superior from a stylistic and technical point of view, as the composition is graceful and harmonious and uses nuances that highlight the influence of Leonardo da Vinci on the young painter from Urbino. The attribution to Raphael is supported by the use of the pollination technique to transfer the preparatory drawing (always used by the Urbino artist, never by Perugino), identified through laboratory analyzes carried out by ART & Co, a spin-off of , were carried out by the University of Camerino based in Ascoli Piceno. And then the presence of “Pentments” and the materials: a preparation of the support with a mixture of plaster and animal glue, layers based on oil and white lead, pigments such as green-gray, ocher and earths, glass powder and varnishes used for the enamel, essential for the creation of nuances, typical of Raphael, pigments compatible with the palette of the “divine painter”. For experts, Raphael’s version would be earlier than Perugino’s and would have served as a model for the other two. The study also analyzes the mathematical proportions of Raphael, “who, unlike Perugino, knew mathematics,” explains Annalisa Di Maria. In her opinion, the painting “represents a turning point: the painter from Urbino found his own language, freed himself from the language of Perugino” and surpassed it, so that he was already considered a master at that time. The painting, according to the scholar, highlights another aspect “that is not talked about enough: the connection between Raphael and Leonardo”. The two met and spent time in Florence. Sanzio admired Da Vici “so much that, like Plato, he immortalized him in his school of Athens.” In short, so many analyzes to explain the ability “to bring the model to life, to make its soul visible to us” that Leonardo and Raphael had in common. During the conference, which is one of the accompanying projects of the national exhibition Arcana-Il Leone del Nuovo Orizzonte, the “Leonardo The Immortal Light” prize for the cultural research section was awarded to Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi
Sgarbi is not Raphael, but at most a prototype of Perugino
Vittorio Sgarbi, art historian and undersecretary of state for culture, believes the news of the discovery of an alleged Raphael is impossible. “There is no possibility,” Sgarbi puts it, “that the painting advertised as “Raphael” and announced in Pergola, a lovely town, comes from the master of Urbino. It is only a journalistic discovery since it is based on the knowledge of a few, since it is a work in private collection, with the legitimate desire of the owner to own a Raphael. “The idea of a Magdalena with the appearance of Perugino’s wife is already bizarre,” adds Sgarbi, “as is the legitimate tendency of some scholars to comment only on big names: Raphael, Leonardo, Botticelli. Perugino is enough and more. The work.” “The work announced as Raphael,” he says, “is actually a version, possibly an autograph, of a prototype by Perugino kept in the Pitti Palace and of which another version is in the Borghese Gallery is known. It is unlikely that it is the year 1504, when, unlike Raphael, his master in the “Marriage of the Virgin” of Caen, paints with infinite grace his admirable “Marriage”, now in Brera, which is so much freer, is newer and looser than that of the master, which he himself uses to make a copy of Perugino, which he had already left behind at that time. And it is equally impossible – he emphasizes – that Perugino painted a copy of Raphael. The new version from a private collection is therefore at best a replica of Perugino. The autograph is examined in comparison to specific works held in museums and the public domain. “The game of the private individual who owns a work that is more authentic than that of a museum,” Sgarbi concludes, “was already attempted for Raphael with the youthful self-portrait. Then the fever passed. But it is clear that private ownership and the living knowledge of only a few scholars are detrimental to the recognition of autography.”
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