What
boundless possibilities of bright achievement these two divine youths
owed us in the forty years more they should have lived! Raphael's
greatest pictures in Madrid are the Spasimo di Sicilia, and the Holy
Family, called La Perla. The former has a singular history. It was
painted for a convent in Palermo, shipwrecked on the way, and thrown
ashore on the gulf of Genoa. It was again sent to Sicily, brought to
Spain by the Viceroy of Naples, stolen by Napoleon, and in Paris was
subjected to a brilliantly successful operation for transferring the
layer of paint from the worm-eaten wood to canvas. It came back to Spain
with other stolen goods from the Louvre. La Perla was bought by Philip
IV. at the sale of Charles I.'s effects after his decapitation. Philip
was fond of Charles, but could not resist the temptation to profit by
his death. This picture was the richest of the booty. It is, of all the
faces of the Virgin extant, the most perfectly beautiful and one of the
least spiritual.
There is another fine Madonna, commonly called La Virgen del Pez, from a
fish which young Tobit holds in his hand. It is rather tawny in color,
as if it had been painted on a pine board and the wood had asserted
itself from below. It is a charming picture, with all the great Roman's
inevitable perfection of design; but it is incomprehensible that
critics, M. Viardot among them, should call it the first in rank of
Raphael's Virgins in Glory.
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