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La Madonna de Bogota (Raphael)
Encyclopedia
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
in 1938, that has been attributed to Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
.
Rediscovery
In 1938 Mrs. Maria Mendoza a friend of Master Santiago Martinez DelgadoSantiago Martínez Delgado
Santiago Martínez Delgado was a Colombian painter, sculptor, art historian and writer. He established a reputation as a prominent muralist during the 1940s and is also known for his watercolors, oil paintings, illustrations and woodcarvings....
invited him and his wife Leonor Concha de Martinez, to her home in Bogotá. Mrs. Mendoza had with her a painting she thought to be by Gregorio Vazquez Arce y Ceballos, a well-known Colombian artist about whom Martinez Delgado had written a book. Based on the fact that Martinez was considered an expert in Art History
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
and Arce y Ceballos, she asked him to attribute the piece. As soon as Master Martinez laid eyes on the painting he immediately knew that it was either by Raphael Sanzio or by someone in his school.
The piece was in very poor condition, split in two and kept together by a piece of wire. Master Martinez took the painting for further study and research, and after taking x-rays and other steps he was convinced that it was, in fact, an original Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. When the rumor about the painting reached the press, it quickly started a heated debate; some dismissed it, including the El Tiempo daily that argued that it was a copy of a Raphael piece currently at the Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
.
Soon the Master called for a symposium at the municipal theater to discuss the matter. The event was attended by well-known Colombian experts like Enrique Uribe White, Antonio Bergmann, Domingo Otero and Ines Acevedo Biester. Martinez explained the provenance and the scientific work done on the work making an irrefutable point. He also revealed that the painting had been brought to Colombia by Caballero Góngora; furthermore, Mr. Enrique Restrepo proved that although it was similar to the one in El Prado it was different in many aspects. The most important of these aspects is that the painting in Madrid's El Escorial Chapel had been there for a long time making it impossible to copy during the 16th century.
Finally in 1939 Martinez brought the painting to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Metropolitan Museum and to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
where it was studied by Daniel Catton, Rich A. Sweet, Ruber H. Clark, Leo A. Marzolo
Leo A. Marzolo
Leo A. Marzolo had a long-time career as a restorer of paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago and was also a painter.He studied at the Chicago Gallery Association and the Palette and Chisel Academy...
, Adolfo Venturiy, and Wilhelm Valentiner
Wilhelm Valentiner
Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner was a German art historian and critic and museum official. He was born at Karlsruhe , and studied at Heidelberg under Henry Thode, and in Holland with De Groot and with Bredius, whose assistant he was at the Gallery of The Hague...
, who was in New York for the International Fair. In June 1939 the painting was confirmed as an original Raphael and entered named the Madonna of Bogota. The piece was then taken to the Chicago Art Institute to be restored.
Joaquin Piñeros Corpas confirmed it in Colombia on an article in El Tiempo: “Confirmado: Madonna De Bogota Por Rafael Sanzio Urbino.” Many US papers acclaimed Master Martinez for his discovery.