Green curtains draw apart, and the Virgin, barefoot on the clouds, comes towards us with the Christ Child in her arms, solemn and faintly troubled. On the left Pope Saint Sixtus gazes up at her; on the right Saint Barbara looks down; and at the bottom two little angels lean on their elbows, gazing idly upward. It is one of Raphael's last Madonnas and one of the best-loved religious paintings in the West.
Key facts
- Artist
- Raphael1483–1520 · Italian
- Date
- c. 1512–1514
- Period
- Renaissance1400–1520
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 265 × 196 cm
- Location
- Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden, Germany
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#AB926C#433223#2C200F#694629#876A45Background
In 1512 Pope Julius II commissioned Raphael to paint an altarpiece for the church of the monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, northern Italy, in honour of his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, also of the della Rovere family. The “Sistine” of the title comes from Saint Sixtus; it has nothing to do with the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
In 1754 Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, bought it for a huge sum and brought it to Dresden; for decades it remained the highest price ever paid for a painting. Legend says the king even moved his own throne aside so that the picture could hang in the best place.
During the Second World War it was hidden in a tunnel in Saxon Switzerland and escaped the bombing of Dresden. The Red Army then took it to Moscow; it was returned to Dresden only in 1955 and hangs today in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.
Technique & composition
Raphael stages the picture like a theatre: have just been drawn back, , and the ledge at the bottom acts like a windowsill. The Virgin seems to be stepping out of heaven into the church, towards the faithful kneeling at the altar.
The composition is a stable triangle: the Virgin at the apex, Sixtus and Barbara at either side, the angels at the base. looks up at the Virgin, yet points out towards us, drawing us into the picture; looks down, leading the eye back to the angels.
Details
Symbolism
A gaze that foresees suffering
and do not look joyful but grave, even startled. Some scholars suggest that the picture originally faced a crucifix in the church, so that mother and child are looking at the Passion to come.
Pope and family
Sixtus's golden cope is woven with oak leaves and acorns, the emblem of the della Rovere family. shows that he has humbly removed his crown before the Virgin. is her attribute: legend says her father imprisoned her in a tower.
Stories
- Did you know?
later took on a life of their own on postcards, stamps, umbrellas and countless souvenirs, becoming almost more famous than the painting itself.
- Did you know?
The painting had a profound influence in Germany and Russia. Goethe, Wagner and Nietzsche were all moved by it, and the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky called it “the greatest revelation of the human spirit”.
Legacy
The Sistine Madonna unites Raphael's harmony, grace and humanity. From the eighteenth century, German scholars such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann hailed it as the supreme ideal of art, and it became an emblem of “divine art” for the Romantic age.
