Raphael and the Fornarina

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Last updated 05 fevereiro 2025

This composition, the first of six versions, articulates Ingres’s conception of the art of painting. For him, the oeuvre of the Renaissance artist Raphael was the pinnacle of artistic achievement. Here Ingres draws on Raphael’s relationship with the woman known as “La Fornarina” (the Little Baker), which, according to the biographer Giorgio Vasari, led to the young artist’s death from an excess of lovemaking. Raphael has just sketched the famous portrait of her, and his beloved subject sits on his knee. But Raphael has eyes only for his own creation, which, like Ingres’s representation of its model, meets the viewer’s gaze. This triangle of glances is complicated by the presence of the Virgin in Raphael’s Madonna of the Chair, seen against the back wall, where she resembles the artist’s lover.

Raphael And La Fornarina By Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres Reproduction from Cutler Miles

Raphael Painting La Fornarina #1 Painting by MotionAge Designs - Fine Art America

Prints & Illustrated Books, Sale n°3183, Lot n°31

Chromolithography Raphael et la Fornarina by Jules David, from the series Les amans célèbres. The image is 21.5 x 16 cm in size and the leaf is 54.5 x