Follower of Raphael

This painting was found by the artist and agent Charles Fairfax Murray and sold via a Roman gallery to J. Pierpont Morgan in 1910. After Morgan’s Library was completed, he sought this and other Italian Renaissance paintings to adorn the red-damask-covered walls of the West Room, his study.

The work was believed to be Raphael’s Holy Family (also known as the Madonna di Loreto), which had long been considered lost. Today, however, most scholars accept that the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France, has Raphael’s original and that this is one of numerous copies. The quality and refinement of the Morgan’s version suggest that it was executed by one of Raphael’s assistants during the master’s lifetime or shortly after his death in 1520. The Christ Child gazes at the Virgin and reaches toward her skillfully rendered veil—a reference to Christ’s shroud, or burial garment.