The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna

1508

Raphael

Artist, Marchigian, 1483 - 1520

A woman holds and looks toward a nude, young child, who sits on her lap and looks out at us, smiling, in this vertical painting. They both have pale skin and thin, gold halos floating above their heads. The clear sky behind them deepens from teal blue along the top edge to ice blue behind their shoulders. To our right, the woman is shown from the lap up with her body angled to our left, toward the child she holds. She looks down at the child almost in profile with dark eyes under faint brows. She has a long, straight nose, smooth cheeks, and her petal-pink lips are closed. Her blond hair is braided and twisted back from her face under a sheer, gold-trimmed, white veil, that flutters as if in a breeze. Her rose-pink dress has a wide neckline and the elbow-length sleeve we can see falls loosely over a tighter, spring-green sleeve. The neckline is trimmed with gold decorations and an inscription: “MDVIII.R.V.PIN.” A peacock-blue robe drapes over the shoulder farther from us and across her lap. That arm wraps around the child’s back, and she holds her other hand to her chest, near where the child grips the neckline of her dress. The child sits on a white pillow with one leg flung across the woman’s lap and the other, closer to us, dangling between her knees. Slightly slouched, his body is angled to our right, toward the woman, but he looks over his shoulder at us with dark eyes. He has faint eyebrows, a delicate nose, a dimpled chin, flushed cheeks, and his pale pink lips curl into a smile. He has wispy blond hair and pudgy, toddler-like cheeks and body. His other hand rests on the pillow between his legs. A band of gauzy, sheer fabric decorated with gold stripes wraps around one shoulder and around his upper chest.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 20

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 80.7 x 57.5 cm (31 3/4 x 22 5/8 in.)
    framed: 118.4 x 97.2 x 8.6 cm (46 5/8 x 38 1/4 x 3 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.25

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Niccolini family, Casa Niccolini, Florence, by 1677;[1] sold after 1772 to Johann Joseph Zoffany [d. 1810]; sold c. 1775 to George Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper [d. 1789], Panshanger, Hertford, England; by inheritance to George Augustus Clavering-Cowper, 4th Earl Cowper [d. 1799], Panshanger; by inheritance to Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau Clavering-Cowper, 5th Earl Cowper [d. 1837], Panshanger; by inheritance to George Augustus Frederick Cowper, 6th Earl Cowper [d. 1856], Panshanger; by inheritance to Francis Thomas De Grey Cowper, 7th Earl Cowper and 7th Baron Lucas [d. 1905], Panshanger and Wrest Park, Bedford, England; by inheritance to his widow, Katrine Cecilia Compton Cowper, Countess Cowper [d. 1913], Panshanger; by inheritance to Lady Ethel Desborough, granddaughter of the 6th Earl, Panshanger; sold 1928 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] sold November 1928 to Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 30 December 1930 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[3] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] Francesco Bocchi and Giovanni Cinelli, Le Belezze della Citte di Firenze, Florence, 1677: 408.
[2] According to Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:389-391.
[3] Dates of Mellon acquisition and deed to Mellon Trust are according to David Finley's notebook donated to the National Gallery of Art in 1977, now in the Gallery Archives.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1816

  • Possibly Pictures of the Italian and Spanish Schools, British Institution, London, 1816, no. 32, as The Virgin and Infant Savior.

1841

  • Possibly British Institution, London, 1841, no. 28, as Virgin and Child.

1857

  • Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Paintings by Ancient Masters, Art Treasures Palace, Manchester, 1857, no. 141.

1881

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1881, no. 152.

1909

  • National Loan Exhibition in Aid of National Gallery Funds, Grafton Galleries, London, 1909-1910, no. 66, repro.

1910

  • Second National Loan Exhibition. Woman and Child in Art, Grafton Galleries, London, 1913-1914, no. 35, repro.

1983

  • Raphael and America, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 81, repro.

Bibliography

1928

  • Kunstauktion 2 supplement (8 July 1928): repro.

1930

  • Valentiner, Wilhelm R., ed. Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections. London, 1930: n.p., pl. 20.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 135, repro.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 162-163, no. 25.

  • Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 178.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 239, repro. 173.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 28, repro.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 56-58, repro.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 38, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 306, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 107.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:128, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 95, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:355. 3:pl.1183

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 280, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. Washington, 1979: 1:389-391; 2:pl. 278.

1982

  • Alsop, Joseph. The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and Its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared. Bollingen series 35, no. 27. New York, 1982: 452.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 176, no. 198, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 325, repro.

  • Ford, Brinsley. "Pictures lost to the Nation." NACF Magazine 29 (Christmas 1985): 17.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 100, 269, color repro.

  • Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 39.

1994

  • Beck, James H. Raphael. New York, 1994: 22, repro.

1996

  • Meyer zur Capellen, Jürg. _ Raphael in Florence_. London, 1996: 174, no. 175, repro.

2000

  • Caglioti, Francesco. Donatello e i Medici: storia del David e della Giuditta. 2 vols. Florence, 2000: 1:338.

2002

  • Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 87.

2010

  • Holler, Manfred J., and Barbara Klose-Ullmann. "Art Goes America." Journal of Economic Issues 44, no. 1 (March 2010): 103.

2011

  • Pergam, Elizabeth A. The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857: Entrepreneurs, Connoisseurs and the Public. Farnham and Burlington, 2011: 125-126, fig. 4.6, 155, fig. 4.10, 215-216, 226, 233 n. 109, 313.

2013

  • Walmsley, Elizabeth. "Italian Renaissance Paintings Restored in Paris by Duveen Brothers, Inc., c. 1927-1929." Facture: conservation, science, art history 1 (2013): 58-77, 59 unnumbered fig., figs. 17-18.

2016

  • Jaques, Susan. The Empress of Art: Catherine the Great and the Transformation of Russia. New York, 2016: 398.

2017

  • Serres, Karen. "Duveen's Italian framemaker, Ferruccio Vannoni." The Burlington Magazine 159, no. 1370 (May 2017): 373-374, fig. 17.

2023

  • Humfrey, Peter. “The Picture Collection of the Earls Cowper at Panshanger.” Artibus et Historiae 44, no. 88 (2023): 210, 214, 220, 226, 235, 261, figs. 3, 52, 53 (these last two in views of the Picture Gallery at Panshanger)..

Inscriptions

center right on border of Madonna's bodice: MDVIII.R.V.PIN (1508 Raphael of Urbino painted it)

Wikidata ID

Q2607065

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