Featured Renaissance painting copy with cracklature -- hand painted?

I saw this in my local antique mall the other day.

I wanted to take it off the wall to photograph the other side but the dealer had the price tag stuck to the wall which made it impossible. The whole thing was heavy and the back looked like it was made of cork, but only a type of heavy material that just looked like cork on the surface but was much denser. Does that seem authentic?

She always seems to get the best stuff in the mall, and so I'm wondering the provenance on this.

It's a copy of a Raphael. There are several hand done copies of this painting. The cracklature makes me think it's real.

It was just about two feet high, probably smaller.

 

Not to be crass, but how much was she asking? That'll be a clue to what she knows about it.

 

About $150. I see the price is just cut off at the side.

 

Same frame style ...
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1262011679/madonna-and-child-icon-lithograph-1950s

Other souvenir painting ...
https://www.antiquesonjackson.com/products/raffaello-madonna-del-granduca-repr-made-in-florence

 

It looks like a reproduction in which the figures have been outlined in silver paint and nimbuses in gold have been added. (In the original, the figures have halos.)

Debora

 

The way the craqelure has developed in parallel lines that way looks very wrong to me, but this is far out of my field, so others may educate me.

 

no , your right.......they look wrong !!!

 

Craquelure can develop in interesting patterns. Here's a few examples at the Hamilton Kerr Institute. I swear there's another article about types somewhere on the Courtauld's website too but I can't find it right now.

 

This was really interesting, the way paintings from different countries tended to show a characteristic craquelure. This one still looks far too regular for long stretches. It reminds me of the way Celluloid meant to look like ivory compares with genuine ivory. One explanation could be the material it is painted on, which is currently a mystery.

 

That craquelure appears to be rolled on. And rolled on to flesh only. If you study it, you can see the pattern repeating itself down the length of the child. Forgive my bluntness, but I fail to see the appeal of this piece. Or understand how the seller can justify a 3-figure price.

Debora

 

Ditto. And both nimbuses have bits cut off.
It looks like the kind of reproduction you see in Italian souvenir shops and in shops that sell religious art.

 

The original. 'The Grand Duke's Madonna.' Oil on panel. Raphael. c. 1504-1505. Pitti Palace, Florence.

Debora

 

Ya know... I think the seller's descriptive word "icon" is key here. That explains the silver paint outlining the figures and the replacement of the halos with the gold paint nimbuses. Don't know why someone would tart up a copy of a masterwork in this way but that's what's been done.

Debora

 

Slightly OT perhaps.....but while researching a factory painting I found that many of the companies who will sell you a factory painting will make a copy of anything you want....and that you can order those replica paintings with or without craquelure. It appears that craquelure is pretty easy for those companies to add to any painting they make.

 

"Would you like craquelure with that order?"

Debora

 

I wonder about the "cork" material it was backed with. It seemed solid as the piece was heavy. Cork isn't porous so it wasn't resin soaked regular cork.

 

We'd have to see a photograph to even speculate.

Debora

 

Perhaps particle board?




~Cheryl

 

Yes, it was probably a type of dense heavy particle board.

 

That's not a good sign.

Debora