Posted on 10/03/2016 1:18:05 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A painting once believed to be a $25 copy caught the eye of an art historian during the filming of a new BBC series and turned out to be a $26 million Raphael.
The Madonna composition had been covered in dirt and hanging above a door in the dusty corner of a room in the Haddo House, one of the National Trust for Scotlands 18th-century homes in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
I thought, crikey, it looks like a Raphael, the historian, Bendor Grosvenor, told The Guardian. It was very dirty, under old varnish, which goes yellow.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
What a British name! "Grosvenor" is the family name of the Dukes of Westminster, the richest non-oil-producing family in known space, or something like that.
Gussie Grosvernor!!!!
Raphael - The Madonna (Yahoo images search results)
Crikey!
The 6th Duke, Gerald, died in August. Hugh, the 7th Duke, is in his 20s and is godfather to young Prince George, 3rd-in-line.
Looks like he painted hundreds but used the same model for them all.
What Wodehouse(s) was he in?
Explains why the then-wife made some comment about ODing on Madonnas during a Boston MFA visit.
"In Philadelphia, it's worth fifty bucks."
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino[2] ; April 6 or March 28, 1483 April 6, 1520),[3] known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.[4]
Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop and, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, and the largest, work of his career. The best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings, with considerable loss of quality. He was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking.
After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael’s more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. His career falls naturally into three phases and three styles, first described by Giorgio Vasari: his early years in Umbria, then a period of about four years (15041508) absorbing the artistic traditions of Florence, followed by his last hectic and triumphant twelve years in Rome, working for two Popes and their close associates.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael
Don’t you just love stories like this.
I wonder if Mr Grosvenor would like to have a look at my Garfield the Cat Painting...
:D
Just like “Antiques Roadshow.”
Raphael? Never heard of him. I’ll give you $50 bucks for it. That’s the highest I can go.
I love that programme, a true national treasure.
BBC 4 creates lots of wonderful programs for those with an attention span longer than ten seconds.
Seen one picture of a medieval lady, you’ve seen them all.
I used to have a print of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Ginevra de Benci” at my desk at work. Her supercilious expression (and great hairstyle) would make me feel inferior, so I would work even harder.
When I left that job, I gave Ginevra to one of my co-workers and a print of the signing of the Constitution to another. A third took a photo of my daughter and a men’s clothing ad featuring Scott Glenn in a very expensive suit.
Why would a coworker of yours want a photo of your daughter? Did he or she even know her?
So the take-away from this is that a $25 painting is - or can be - just as good as a $26M painting. So much for the “art” market.
My coworker was a young, red-haired woman, single with no children, and she looked more like my daughter (who was 3-ish) than I do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.