Masterpieces from the World’s Museums in the Hermitage
Raphael’s Madonna with Christ and St John the Baptist (The Madonna Alba) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

On 3 September 2004 a showing of Raphael’s Madonna with Christ and St John the Baptist (The Madonna Alba) opened. The painting is on loan from the National Gallery of art in Washington, D.C. The Madonna Alba is one of the most famous works by Raphael (1483-1520) and was created after the artist arrived in Rome in 1508 at the invitation of Pope Julius II. Raphael’s work in the Eternal City was quite varied. He made wall paintings in the formal halls of the Vatican Palace; worked as an architect and portraitist; and he was engaged in “deciding the fate of antiquities”. He executed many works dealing with religious subjects.

While in Rome he saw space and its relationship with figures in a new manner, and this was reflected in the Madonna Alba, which is traditionally dated to between 1509 - 1511. This work is highly characteristic of the artist’s quest for new decorative solutions in easel painting. The composition is placed within a circle (tondo) having a diameter of 94.5 ñm. The tondo form requires that the artist have a brilliant command of composition and it appears in a number of Raphael’s works, for example in the State Hermitage’s Madonna Conestabile.

Though painted in Rome, apparently on a private commission, the painting was hanging in a church near Naples in 1528. In 1686 it was acquired by the Viceroy of Naples, Don Gasparo de Haro y Guzman, the Marquis del Caprio. Later the work was taken over by his daughter, who married the Duke of Alba. Until 1802 it was kept in the family’s palace in Madrid. This explains the painting’s second name, the Madonna Alba. By 1820 the painting had passed through a succession of owners when it came into the collection of a banker, William G. Coesvelt. In 1836 it was acquired from Coesvelt at the behest of Nicholas I, who wanted it for the Hermitage.

In 1928 the Museum received a secret document listing art works to be sold off. There were 28 items. Number One was The Adoration of the Magi by Botticelli. Number Two on the list was the Madonna Alba by Raphael. In 1931 the Madonna Alba together with a number of other works of art was acquired by the American billionaire and US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. In 1937 Mellon donated around 20 paintings from the former collection of the Hermitage to the National Gallery of Art inWashington, including two masterpieces by Raphael - Saint George and the Madonna Alba.

The National Gallery of Art has previously loaned to the Hermitage works that once belonged to the Museum. In 1997 Jan van Eyck’s Annunciation was put on display in St Petersburg and in 2002, Titian’s Venus at the Mirror. Now visitors will have the chance to become acquainted with one of the famous works by Raphael that formerly adorned the Museum’s collection.

The State Hermitage Publishing House has issued an illustrated publication for this show. The curator of the exhibition is T. K. Kustodieva, a senior researcher in the Department of Western European Art of the State Hermitage.

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Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky at the opening of the exhibition

Tatiana Kustodieva, the curator of the exhibition, and Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage, at the opening of the exhibition

At the exhibition