The portrait was bought by collectors without knowing its famous author (AFP)
French collectors They bought the painting online this year without knowing its historyand French and Italian experts have just confirmed it as a masterpiece by the Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael which goes back to his meeting with Leonardo da Vinci around 1505.
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“When I first saw her in a photo on the Internet, this saint was Mary Magdalene I was immediately fascinated“, one of the collectors, who requested anonymity, tells AFP.
They bought it from a London gallery for £30,000 (about $37,000). “When it arrived, even though it was very dirty, it was even more moving to see it,” he remembers.
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Believing it to be a painting from the school of Leonardo da Vinci, he sought the opinion of Annalisa Di Maria, a member of the UNESCO group of experts in Florence, Italy, who authenticated the work in September.
This reassignment “does not in any way alter its spiritual beauty,” adds the thirty-year-old, a collector like his father, who would like to share the “extraordinary” discovery with the public by entrusting it to a museum.
The work was purchased for less than $40,000 and now has a value that is difficult to estimate (AFP)
The experts’ conclusions, available online, were published by the journal ISTE, Open Science, Arts et Sciences, whose editorial team includes Philippe Walter, director of the French National Center for Scientific Research and former director of the Louvre Laboratory.
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After countless analysesincluding visualization through Infrared light from hidden layers of carbon Based on the color pigments, the painting could be attributed to Raphael, the French name of Raffaello Sanzio (1483-1520), explains Di Maria.
These analyses, “based on the latest scientific findings, brought to light the ‘regret’, that is, the Improvements by the painter until the final version work. Yours too “Spolvero” technique“the transfer of a drawing from a first support to the final support,” as in Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, explains the expert.
Two further versions of the Magdalene have been cataloged, one of which is attributed to Perugino, Raphael’s teacher and later collaborator.
Painted by Rafael on a poplar wood panel measuring 46 x 33 cm, it is “of great mastery and incredible finesse in execution which, together with the scientific elements, testify that the portrait is of this genius,” emphasizes Di Maria.
Through research in the archives of the city of Florence, it was also possible to trace the origin of the painting, which was “considered lost,” said the expert.
Before its purchase by French collectors, “it belonged to a private collection in the north of England and…” It ended up at a small auction where the London gallery purchased it thinking it was a painting from the school of Leonardo da Vinci.“, explains Nathalie Popis, a specialist in applied mathematics in Renaissance art.
The back of the painting (AFP)
This discovery “shows the influence of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) on Raphael, who at the time of their meeting emancipated himself from the art of Perugino and adopted his ‘Sfumato’ technique, the superposition of very thin layers of monochromatic enamels translucent, the experts add added.
Her role model is probably Chiara FancelliWife of Perugino, to whom the Magdalena found in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence is attributed.
“Another version, the attribution of which has yet to be clarified, is found in the Borghese Villa in Rome. There are no records until 1693, when numerous copies were in circulation,” continues Popis, who carried out comparative studies on the face of the saint with Jean Charles Pomerol, member of the Paris Scientific Committee and former president of the University of Paris Pierre et Marie Curie.
None of the experts interviewed by AFP wanted to estimate the value of the recovered Magdalena.
Before the study was published and without providing counter-expertise, its attribution to Raphael was disputed by some sources in Italy, including the president of the Academy Raffaello d’Urbino (another name attributed to Raphael according to his hometown), who hold it according to the Journal des Arts for “certainly a prototype of Perugino”.
(With information from AFP)