Painting "The Lady with the Unicorn" by Raphael Santi: description, history

The picture "Lady with a Unicorn", authored by Rafael Santi, demonstrates one of the most attractive and mysterious masterpieces of genius. It was first mentioned in 1652 in the Galleria Borghese collection in Rome.

Florentine period of the young Raphael

After training with Perugino and having gained his style, the young Raphael goes to Florence, where he presumably appears in the workshop of the great Leonardo in 1504 and sees a portrait of the Mona Lisa. This work makes a great impression on the young painter. He carefully studies the techniques of an experienced master, makes sketches from Leonardo's paintings and with even greater persistence begins to work on his technique. In Florence in the years 1506-1507. The picture "Lady with a Unicorn" was created. Rafael Santi could not have imagined that in a few centuries it would cause discussion and debate as to how many changes will take place before it opens up to everyone in its original version. The researchers suggest that the portrait was created from nature. Two years later, after finishing the picture "Lady with a Unicorn", Rafael will forever move to Rome.

Refined style of the young painter

Only 36 years were allocated to the "divine Sanzio", as his contemporaries called, to turn from a gifted child into a true child of the Renaissance, which had the gift of an artist, a master of monumental paintings, and an architect. His style captivates with clarity, poise and purity.

Painting "The Lady with the Unicorn" by Raphael: description

On the canvas we see a portrait of an unknown beauty. The composition was created explicitly under the influence of Leonardo.
A young lady with a unicorn sits on a loggia framed on two sides, like the work of his great predecessor, two columns. Her hands, as well as the hands of the Gioconda, are composed of a semicircle. She also slightly turns her gaze to the side. But she does not tell us anything, as Mona Lisa does. If Leonardo portrayed the young mother of the family, then Raphael in the movie "The Lady with the Unicorn" created a captivating, clean and innocent image of a young girl on whose knees a small unicorn sits.

According to the beliefs of that time, he can be tamed only by a girl who has preserved her chastity.

We continue the description of Rafael Santi's painting "The Lady with the Unicorn". A neatly decorated head with golden hair is adorned with a small diadem, which, perhaps, ties the hair behind. The virgin is depicted against a clear clear sky, where in the distance one can see the low, gently rolling hills of Tuscany, in which there is no mystery. A dress with a low neckline and lush removable sleeves, a gold chain ornament with a ruby and a pearl that has the shape of a drop, show that this is a wealthy elegant noble lady. There is only one strangeness, which is noticed by everyone: there is not a single ring on the fingers of the unknown.

This female image is completely harmonious and whole. It is written on the transitions of pure and light tones.

Grace and refinement, as well as the mystery of the soul of this young stranger - the two main secrets that hides the portrait. This is one of the ideals of the beauty of women in the early 16th century.

Who was considered the author?

The history of the portrait is unique. Her authorship was attributed to Perugino, Ghirlandaio and many other painters, and Vasari did not give a description of this work. D. Cantalamesso first began research in 1916. He was the first who doubted the authorship of the picture "Lady with a Unicorn". Very attentive to its attribution came in the thirties and forties of the last century. It was examined by X-rays. Since 1935 the restoration has begun. In the painting before, everyone saw Saint Catherine of Alexandria, on whose shoulders a cloak was thrown. Even her hands held differently.

A drawing from the Louvre was very helpful, where we see the initial stage of creating a portrait.

Metamorphoses of St. Catherine

X-ray revealed several layers of later additions, as well as the fact that initially a small dog (a symbol of fidelity of spouses) was sitting on the hands of the model, which the author himself replaced with a unicorn. This was learned in 1959, when they again examined the work and found out that in the course of later modifications the painter himself changed the meaning of the picture from devotion to purity. The picture was badly damaged. Restorers, carefully removing layer by layer, returned the masterpiece its original appearance.

Now it is assumed that the picture has gone through several stages of work:

• The model holding the dog was less young, and Rafael wrote only a lake landscape, a sky and a figure against it.
• The position of hands, sleeves, dog, columns was completed by another artist. Perhaps he was close to the school of Leonardo.
• A few decades later, the dog became a unicorn, which required rewriting hands.
• A century later, an unknown artist turned this image into Saint Catherine.

It was not possible to find out who served as the model. This is a riddle of the portrait.

Exhibition of one painting

The pearl of the Renaissance "The Lady with the Unicorn" (Raphael's painting) was exhibited at the Pushkin Museum in 2011. The painting was brought to Russia in commemoration of the year of Italian culture and its language in our country. The work seldom leaves home.

R. Vodre, the head of the museums of Rome, said that the preparation of the painting for the trip to the Russian Federation was three months. Originally built completely sealed container. It is there that the microclimate necessary for the canvas should be preserved. After this, an outer wooden box was made, into which a container was placed, which can not be moved by one millimeter. At the airport in Rome, the container was brought in a special car and then placed on a government aircraft for delivery to Moscow.

In Pushkin's museum, the masterpiece was preserved, placing it under bullet-proof glass.

The experience of the mono exhibitions in the Pushkin Museum is already available, since it was brought to the "Gioconda" in the 70s. To view the masterpiece, the viewer was given forty-five minutes. Queues, of course, are inevitable, but art lovers waited for a meeting with the canvas of Raphael Santi.