Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael was created in 1506. The painting is in Galleria degli Uffizi Florence. The size of the work is 107 x 77,2 cm and is made of oil on wood.
This work was painted during Raphael’s Florentine period (1504-1508), during which he was able to study the great masters of Florence and also to work for some of the more important merchant families. In his biography of the artist, Giorgio Vasari says that the painting was commissioned for the marriage of Lorenzo Nasi with Sandra di Matteo Canigiani, celebrated on 23 February 1506. When, the Nasi home was destroyed by a landslide in 1547, the painting was broken into seventeen fragments and probably given to Michele di Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio for restoration. Its subsequent history is unknown, until it is recorded as being part of the collection of Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici in 1646-47. During his Florentine period, Raphael painted other works on the theme of the group of the Virgin Mary with Jesus and the young John the Baptist, in which he was able to make use of all of his experience from Urbino and Florence (see, for example, the “Madonna in the Meadow” in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the “Belle Jardinière” in the Musée du Louvre, Paris)… (read more in Galleria degli Uffizi)
About the Artist: Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region. Most modern historians agree that Raphael at least worked as an assistant to Perugino from around 1500. Raphael led a “nomadic” life, working in various centres in Northern Italy, but spent a good deal of time in Florence, perhaps from about 1504. Although there is traditional reference to a “Florentine period” of about 1504–1508, he was possibly never a continuous resident there… read more
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