Sistine Madonna with Jesus
after a painting by Rafael

The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael Sanzio.
The altarpiece was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza, also known as the Sistine chapel.
The canvas was one of the last Madonnas painted by the artist.
Giorgio Vasari called it "a truly rare and extraordinary work".
Relocated to Dresden from 1754, the well-known painting was particularly influential in Germany.
After World War II, it was relocated to Moscow for a decade before returned to Germany.
It is now a master piece of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.

In 1754, Augustus III of Poland purchased the painting for 110,000 – 120,000 francs,
whereupon it was relocated to Dresden and achieved new prominence;
this was to remain the highest price paid for any painting for many decades.
In 2001's The Invisible Masterpiece, Hans Belting and Helen Atkins describe the influence the painting has had in Germany:

Like no other work of art, Raphael's Sistine Madonna in Dresden has fired the Germans' imagination,
uniting or dividing them in the debate about art and religion....
Over and again, this painting has been hailed as 'supreme among the world's paintings' and accorded the epithet 'divine'....

These two well-known putti can also be found on the original painting by Rafael.



painting: waterbased on an ivory chip
frame: ivory with inlay.
preservation painting: excellent
preservation frame: excellent
dimension vertically: 105 mm
inner diameter: 46 mm
thick: 10 mm
convex glass
small triangular eyelet
backside: in pencil writing Lebrun Tochter, and two old stickers mentioning the price :29 Mk
This framing differs somewhat from the usual framing as the sides of the frame are in wood and not in ivory.
It is not known where this painting was made, but it was first sold in Karlsruhe (Germany)




stock number 485