Madonna of the Goldfinch
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) (1483 to 1520) · about 1506
Mary sits on a rock in an open landscape with a book in her hand, and two small boys lean against her knees. The one on the left, dressed in a camel skin, is the young John the Baptist, and he holds out a goldfinch to the Christ Child, who strokes its head. The bird, with its red face, was a traditional symbol of the Passion, because legend said it got its colour from Christ's blood at the crucifixion. Raphael painted this quiet scene around 1506, during his four years in Florence, as a wedding gift for his friend Lorenzo Nasi. The pyramid of three figures against a soft blue distance is the ideal of harmony that made his name.
Look at how Raphael has absorbed Leonardo: the gentle smile, the pyramidal grouping, the hazy landscape with a bridge and a town. Yet the mood is entirely his own, clear and sweet where Leonardo is mysterious. Mary's red dress and blue mantle are painted in oil with a smoothness that hides every brushstroke. The children's bodies are studied from life, with dimpled knees and unsteady feet, and Christ rests one foot on his mother's, a tiny gesture of trust.
In 1547 the Nasi house collapsed in a landslide and the painting was broken into seventeen pieces. It was patched together by another painter and later entered the Medici collections. A modern restoration completed in 2008 removed centuries of overpaint and revealed the bright colours you see today, along with the joins between the fragments if you look closely under raking light. The picture tells you that Raphael, at twenty three, had already found the balance that later centuries would call classical. A memorable detail is the goldfinch itself, painted so precisely that the species can be identified.
Did You Know? The panel was shattered into seventeen pieces when a landslide destroyed its owner's house in 1547, and it has been carefully reassembled ever since.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.