The Hermitage presents to the Italian public a masterpiece by Rosso Fiorentino returned to its halls after lengthy restoration

After a careful restoration that lasted four years, one of the masterpieces of Italian Mannerism is returning to the halls of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg: it is the Madonna in Glory painted by Rosso Fiorentino.

In anabsolute preview, on Friday, April 24, at 3 p.m., on the Hermitage’s Youtube channel, the restored work will be unveiled to the Italian public (with Italian subtitles), thanks to a presentation by Tatjana Kirillovna Kustodieva, a great scholar of Italian art, Conservator of Italian painting of the 13th and 16th centuries and chief researcher for the Hermitage’s Western European Figurative Art Section. The scholar will virtually take the audience on a special close-up view of the masterpiece, to reveal anew the splendor of the brushstrokes and colors.

The Madonna in Glory, once improperly called Madonna and Child on the Clouds, shows an innovative dynamism and sinuosity, even though it starts from a classical model, namely Raphael’s Madonna of Foligno, taken up through prints by Marco Raimondi.
It is a very striking painting because of the tension of the characters and the almost mystical light that radiates the Virgin and that the Madonna herself seems to emit.

Rosso Fiorentino’s masterpiece arrived at the Hermitage in 1810, but its provenance is unknown.

The restoration revealed, thanks to X-rays, a beautiful underlying design and brought to light many new details: if before the rays around the Virgin’s head seemed green, now the blue range opens up; if the archangels and the upper part of the work were almost invisible, now the figures have returned to size and strength; later additions have been removed and the original colors and contours of the faces have re-emerged. In addition, a laurel wreath was uncovered on the head of the putto clutching his companion, proving the authenticity of the Hermitage work.

The long-awaited appointment confirms the tribute that the St. Petersburg museum and its director, Michail Piotrovsky, offers to Italy.

Pictured, Rosso Fiorentino, Madonna in Glory (St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum)

The Hermitage presents to the Italian public a masterpiece by Rosso Fiorentino returned to its halls after lengthy restoration

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