Small Cowper Madonna
The Small Cowper Madonna is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, depicting Mary and Child, in a typical Italian countryside. It has been dated to around 1504–1505, the middle of the High Renaissance.
History
There are no exact sources confirming for whom the Small Cowper Madonna was painted. Since it was made in Urbino, where Raphael’s main benefactors of these years, the Feltri/Roveri ruled, it was probably a private commission; the reddish hair of both Madonna and child might hint at an allusion to Maria della Rovere, daughter of La Prefettessa Giovanna della Rovere and mother of Sigismondo Varano, heir to the Duchy of Camerino right to the south. Her grandmother Battista Sforza, a famous redhead, was portrayed several times by Piero della Francesca. Both the Madonna and the Christ child closely resemble the Madonna and child on the so called Lee-version of “The Holy Family with a Lamb“, first published 1934 in the Burlington Magazine, which also depicts the family‘s mausoleum. It is widely thought that the church on the right hand side of the painting is the church of San Bernardino, where the Dukes of Urbino were buried, and it has been suggested that the presence of the church means the painting may have been "commissioned by the family for devotional and legitimation purposes."Around 1780, the painting was sold to the prominent art collector George Clavering-Cowper, 3rd Earl Cowper, whose surname would lend the painting its name. The painting was passed down through six generations of Cowpers before it was sold to Duveen Brothers, Inc. in 1913. In 1914, it was sold to American magnate Peter A.B. Widener, who displayed the painting at Lynnewood Hall. Peter A.B. Widener's son, Joseph E. Widener, donated the Small Cowper Madonna to the National Gallery of Art in 1942, along with the rest of Lynnewood Hall's extensive art collection.
In 2015 the National Gallery of Art loaned the Small Cowper Madonna to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts to be exhibited alongside The Virgin and Child (The Northbrook Madonna). The Northbrook Madonna is in the Worcester Art Museum's permanent collection and was once attributed to Raphael. One hope of the exhibition was to identify the artist who painted the Northbrook Madonna. The painter of the Northbrook Madonna was later identified by the museum as perhaps being Domenico Alfani, a close friend of Raphael's whose works have often been misattributed to the better-known artist.