Madonna del Velo z przedstawieniem kardynała Paola Emilia Sfondratiego ze zbiorów wilanowskich w świetle ostatnich prac badawczych i konserwatorskich

A valuable work associated with the output of Raphael is extant in the collection of the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów. It constitutes a repetition of The Holy Family, a work by the Urbino master which used to be located in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome and which has been considered lost. The painting, also known as the Madonna del Velo, is now believed to be one and the same as The Holy Family or, as an alternative name, La Madone de Lorette, currently in Musée Condé in Chantilly. The history of Raphael's original is complex and often mysterious. Over a hundred of its copies and variants are known. Enchanted with the beauty of this work, Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati (1560-1618), a presbyter of the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, purchased it in 1591 and allegedly commissioned two copies of it for his brothers. The author added the figure of an angel and a portrait of the cardinal to Raphael's original composition. The links known to have existed between Cardinal Sfondrati and the outstanding Baroque painter Guido Reni (1575-1642), as well as extant drawings and prints, have promoted the conjecture that he might be the author of this exceptional work. However, an exhaustive study of Guido Reni's output and a careful investigation of archive materials in Poland and in Italy are required to determine its authorship. The painting arrived in Wilanów around the middle of the 19th century, when the palace was owned by Count and Countess August Potocki. Four articles pertain to one of the most interesting, and most valuable, paintings in the Wilanów collection, the Madonna del Velo, discussing various issues linked with its history, its study and its conservation. The Wilanów version is particularly interesting because of its high artistic quality and the fact that it shares some stylistic features with works by Raphael considered to be its prototypes. The technological structure of the Wilanów painting and the materials used in its making were investigated in the course of a research project and with the involvement of many scholars representing various areas of expertise. Analyses were conducted which made it possible to describe the board used as the painting surface, the pigments and the binding agents of the painting's layers, which is of considerable importance in further research on the workshop that produced the work. An account of the recent conservation interventions involving this painting is appended to the material.