Portrait of Pope Julius II

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The portrait of Pope Julius II is a painting by Raphael that was created in Rome in 1511.

Vasari writes about Raphael's portrait in his Vite :

"At that time he painted the portrait of Julius II in oil similarly and vividly, so that the viewer was inspired by the same awe that he would have felt at the sight of the Pope himself."

There are at least three versions of the picture. The version, which today is considered to be the original , is in the National Gallery in London, others in the Uffizi in Florence and in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main. How big the share of Raphael or his workshop in which picture is remains controversial among art historians. There is no complete provenance for any of the three pictures .

According to the Venetian chronicler Marino Sanudo , the picture was exhibited in Santa Maria del Popolo in September 1513 , which Vasari confirms in both editions of his Vite . In 1591 the picture passed into the possession of Cardinal Sfondratis, a nephew of Gregory XIV , who tried to sell it twice in vain. In 1633 it appeared in an inventory of the Borghese collection , and several travelers from the 18th century wrote in their travel reports that they had seen the picture there. Then the written sources dry up until 1704, when a Julius portrait of Raphael was inventoried in the Uffizi.

In 1823 a Julius portrait of Raphael appeared in the inventory of the collection of the British banker John Julius Angerstein (1732–1823), which was created after his death, today mostly recognized as the original version of the National Gallery in London.

Historical background

Pope Julius II on a medal from 1506

In 1503 Giuliano della Rovere was elected Pope and took the name Julius II . Politically it was a time of armed conflict for supremacy in Italy, in which the Papal States, the Republic of Venice , Louis XII. of France and Emperor Maximilian were involved as actors. After the Venetians at Agnadello had suffered a severe defeat with the active participation of the Pope, had to surrender parts of their territory to the Papal States, but had also been freed from the papal verdict, Julius changed allies to now, together with Venice, the Confederates, Maximilian, the King of Aragon and from 1511 also with the English under Henry VIII to drive the French out of Italy. From October 1510, Julius became the first Pope in over 150 years to have a beard, which he did not take off again until March 1512, when he saw his policy on Northern Italy being on the right track.

In 1508 Raphael came to Rome on the recommendation of Donato Bramante , in 1509 he began to paint the stamps , in addition to the projects Sistine Madonna and Madonna of Foligno , there were also commissions from Chigis to furnish the Chigikapelle in Santa Maria del Popolo. Raphael and his workshop were working to capacity at the time the papal portrait was ordered.

The Florentine portrait

Data

Tempera on wood, 108.5 × 80 cm

The picture first appeared in a Borghese inventory from 1631. According to the Uffizi, it was in the collection of the Dukes of Urbino before 1631 . From 1704 the picture was kept in the Uffizi. Until 1970, when Cecil Gould published his essay in Apollo , the Florentine painting, which was restored in 1975, was considered the original by Raphael. The directory of the Florentine museums lists the picture as a copy of Raphael and his workshop.

The London portrait

Data

108.7 × 81 cm, oil on poplar wood

The painting came into the possession of the National Gallery in 1824 with the John J. Angerstein collection. Until it was examined by its deputy director Cecil Gould (1918–1994) in 1970, it was considered a workshop copy of the Florentine original. Gould's attribution as Raphael's original is supported by Konrad Oberhuber , art historian and former director of the Albertina , and the predominant opinion today is rejected by the American art historian James Beck , who believes the picture is a workshop copy of the Florentine original by Gianfrancesco Penni . The Borghese inventory number and the changed background speak in favor of the attribution as an original. The National Gallery is showing the picture in room 8 of their permanent exhibition.

The Frankfurt portrait

Data

Oil on poplar wood 106 × 78.4 cm

The provenance of this picture can be proven from 1905 onwards. In 1909/10, it was bought by the New York artist and restorer Arthur Dawson (1858–1922), who after the restoration promoted it as a real Raphael. In 1914 it went to an American collector who had the picture compared with the Florentine picture in Europe. During the war it was bought by a Viennese banker, whose heirs put it up for auction at the Dorotheum in Vienna in 2007 . According to the catalog, the picture had an estimate of between 8,000 and 12,000 euros, had been attributed to both Raffael and Sebastiano del Piombo in the past , was offered as a copy of Raphael, but could not be sold at auction. In 2011 the Städel acquired the painting for a previously undisclosed amount.

Copies

Portrait of Julius II in the Pitti Palace

The portrait in the Pitti Palace

Data

82 × 99 cm, oil on canvas, c. 1545/46, attributed to Titian

The Berlin portrait

Data

Oil on canvas, 95.5 × 82.5 cm.

The State Museums in Berlin have a portrait that art historians agree on as a workshop copy. The previous owner was the Marchese Vincenzo Giustinian , from whose collection 160 pictures were sent to King Friedrich Wilhelm III in 1815 . were sold by Prussia, which are now exhibited in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie, in Sanssouci and in the New Palais in Potsdam. This portrait of the Pope was also among the new acquisitions.

In a post-mortem inventory of the Giustinian collection from 1638, the picture is referred to as handwritten, was later attributed to Giulio Romano and is now considered a workshop copy.

reception

Raphael's Julius portrait is considered a key work for the representative papal portrait of the following centuries. In contemporary art it found a late echo in Francis Bacon's portrait series Pope Innocent X after Velazquez.

literature

  • Marius Mrotzek: What does Raffael have to do with it? The portrait of Julius II in the Städel. 2011 ( urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-artdok-18454 , PDF, 266 kB)
  • Cecil Gould: The Raphael Portrait of Julius II. Problems of Versions and Variants; and a Goose that turned into a Swan. In: Apollo Magazine. 92, 1970. pp. 187-189.
  • John H. Beck: Raphael. New York 1999. German edition under the title: Raffael. Cologne 2003, ISBN 3832173366
  • James Beck : The Portrait of Julius II in London's National Gallery. The Goose that turned Into a Gander. Artibus et Historiae. Vol. 17, No. 33, 1996. pp. 69-95. JSTOR 1483552 .

Individual evidence

  1. a b Portrait of Pope Julius II, Raphael (1483-1520), NG27 x-ray examination
  2. quoted from: Giorgio Vasari, CVs of the most famous painters, sculptors and architects , 3rd edition Zurich 1985. p. 391
  3. a b Hasan Niyazi: Portrait of Julius II - a Raphael case study ( Memento from January 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) , December 14, 2011
  4. Loren Patridge: A Renaissance Likeness. Art and Culture in Raphael's Julius II. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press. 1980. p. 43. ISBN 978-0-520-03901-8
  5. Polomuseale Florenz inventory 1890
  6. a b Polomuseale Florence catalog
  7. Beck, James: The Portrait of Julius II in London's National Gallery. The Goose that turned Into a Gander. Artibus et Historiae. Vol. 17, No. 33, 1996. pp. 69-95. JSTOR 1483552 .
  8. Städel Museum. Press release. Städel acquired a portrait of Julius II from Raphael and his workshop. December 6, 2011.
  9. Bloomberg November 6, 2011
  10. ^ Silvia Danesi Squarzina: the Giustiniani Collection. Introduction. ( Memento from July 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  11. illustrations

Web links

Commons : Raphael's Julius portrait  - collection of images, videos and audio files