Raphael's workshop - The Madonna of Leigh Court 1510 - 1520 - oil on panel 103 x 80 cm The painting, so named after the place where the work was inventoried from 1822, namely the country home of the Bristol manatee, Philippe John Miles (1773 - 1845), was mentioned as a Raphael painting and celebrated as a 'different' version of the famous Madonna of the Veil, now in the Musée Condé in Chantilly. The latter, now considered definitively as the prototype of Raphael's Madonna, has not always enjoyed the same attributional fortune. Adolfo Venturi, in his 1935 monograph on Raphael, considered the Madonna of Light Court presented here to be "the original of many imitations of the Madonna that disappeared from the Loreto Basilica at the time of Napoleon". And of the same opinion were, after him, Bernard Berenson, Georg Gronau, Roberto Longhi and Federico Zeri. Even Maurizio Marini, in an expertise dated 21 March 2001, supports this thesis by using the dimensions of the painting in the catalogue as a primary term of comparison: compared to the measurements of the Chantilly panel, those of the painting presented here would be closer to its probable pendant, the Portrait of Julius II now in the National Gallery in London. In addition, the intense colours, the use of very expensive colours and the high quality of the work induced the scholar to define the work as entirely Raphaelesque in its autography, in particular due to the transparency of the veil and the extraordinary mother-of-pearl tone of the whites.Otherwise, in the description of the famous Parisian sale of the Sedelmeyer collection in 1907, the panel would have been listed as an autograph by Giulio Romano. Of the same opinion is also Fabrizio Biferali, who has extensively studied the work for the exhibition 'Raphael's Madonna of Loreto. Storia avventurosa e successo di un'opera' (Loreto, Museo Pontificio Santa Casa, 18 July - 7 October 2001) and who equally recognises the hand of Giulio Romano, particularly in the figure of the Madonna and Child.Here, more prudently, we attribute the work to Raphael's workshop, despite the fact that diagnostic investigations, including infrared reflectography and X-rays, reveal several pentimenti, carried out by such a sure hand that we can tend to believe that the drawing was done by a great Maestro, rather than by workshop pupils.Thanks are due to Professor Biferali for allowing the use of his study on the Leight Court Madonna, despite the fact that the work did not participate in the aforementioned exhibition and, consequently, the card was not part of the exhibition catalogue. Provenance:Richard Hart Davis, M.P. (1766-1842), acquired in Italy prior to 1822;Philippe John Miles (1773-1845), Leigh Court, Bristol, as Raphael, from 1822;Sale Christie's, Manson & Woods, London, auction 28 June 1884;Sedelmeyer Collection, Paris (listed as Giulio Romano);1907, sale Sedelmeyer Collection, Paris;1935, Sanremo, Prince Giovanni del Drago Collection;by descent to heirs; acquired there by the present owner.Bibliography :A. Venturi, Raffaello, Milan, Mondadori, 1935, (as Raffaello).Catalogue des tableaux composant la collection Ch. Sedelmeyer, 2 vols., Paris, 1907, p. 176, (as Giulio Romano).F. Biferali, unpublished study for the exhibition La Madonna di Loreto di Raffaello. Storia avventurosa e successo di un'opera, Loreto, Museo Pontificio Santa Casa, 18 July - 7 October 2001 (unpublished file).