Art News

Painting in Storage at Italian Ducal Palace May Be Raphael’s

A portrait which Italian art experts now believe to have been created by Renaissance genius Raphael in Florence, Italy. The painting had lain in storage in a Ducal Palace since the 1970s. At the time, experts said it was probably a 17th-century copy of a painting from the Raphael School. But Mario Scalini, an arts assessor, thinks it is actually an early version of a famous painting, the "Madonna of the Pearl", which is held by the Prado Museum in Madrid.

ROME (AP).- A finely
painted portrait of a demurely looking woman nestled in an
exceptionally
ornate frame that was kept in an Italian ducal palace storeroom
appears to
be a Raphael original and not a copy as long thought, an art
official in
central Italy said Friday. However, experts on the Renaissance
giant
quickly cautioned that art historians would have to closely study
it
before any conclusions can be made.