Madonna of the Rosary (Caravaggio)
The Madonna of the Rosary (it.: Madonna del Rosario ) is a 1605/ 06 's painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The large-format image ( 364.5 × 249.5 cm) was painted with oil paint on canvas and is located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
Development and subject
In the Madonna of the Rosary is the only proven votive or donor image from the oeuvre of the artist. The founder and principal of the painting is shown at the bottom left of the screen and still as unknown as the Dominican monastery and the Dominican Church, for the painting was intended to all appearances. The fact that up to now in the well crawled Roman and Neapolitan archives no news have surfaced to this great altarpiece, a case for a ( then failed ) contract for a Dominican church in northern Italy. In question would the cities to which Caravaggio or his Roman conveyor had relationships, such as Genoa, Siena and Florence.
Shown is the spread of around 1468 Alanus de Rupe legend according to which St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, the Rosary is said to have received at a Marian apparition in 1208 and introduced in his order. Legend has it that Mary had the rosary given to Dominic as a weapon in the fight against the Albigensians.
The subject of the Madonna of the Rosary is derived from that of the Virgin of Mercy. It was especially the Dominicans, by sermons about new mantle visions - popularized the pictorial conception of Mary as patroness of the faithful - in which the geschaute in the hereafter Our Lady of the deceased members of the relevant Order under the special protection of her coat takes. The representation of the Virgin of Mercy in Western art is done with standing in the rule - if it deems no baby Jesus in her arms - arms outstretched over a bevy kleinfigürlicher people, representatives of the Company and the clergy. In the Madonna of the Rosary Caravaggio varies this representation by letting stand on the seat between the legs of the Madonna the Infant Jesus, this the child but still holds in her arms.
Image description
The fluted column on the left in the picture and the red curtain that extends up over the entire screen width, giving the composition an inner pictorial framing. Increases Maria perched on four men standing in the Dominican Habit, which is left to the Founder, St. Dominic is. From the foreground three barefooted men in towels, which are reminiscent of the Apostles clothing pushing; and a woman with an infant, to them. In between kneeling on the left side a gentleman in a black robe and white ruff. This figure, in which the donor or client of the image can be seen peering out over the right shoulder from the image and insured so of attention within the Viewer.
From the composition results in a strict hierarchy: Mother and child open the image on the bottom left, with the woman should look up to as a single to Madonna, while her child observed the three men who come to the staggering of the three ages of the right. Fully clothed the two older, naked under his cloth of youth, stretch out all three arms to receive from the hands of the Founder rosaries.
The hands of St.. Dominic, who hold the rosaries, form an imaginary horizontal line between saints and ordinary people, among which the noble founder mixes, which, as it opens up the mantle of the saints, for the common people and is urged by their fierce devotion to the side.
The Christ Child is shown standing in her lap, which probably should clarify its origin from the body of the mother. While Mary is downright pragmatic going to stop Dominic to distribute rosaries among the poor, the little Jesus covers their shoulders, engages in childish gesture on the bulging belly and looks playful to the viewer.
Dating and provenance
The Madonna of the Rosary is the only altarpiece by Caravaggio, whose date of origin has not been proved by documents. The authenticity of parts of the composition, such as the curtains, the Madonna herself and the portrait of the founder had even been denied in the past. The painting was examined by X-ray and infrared reflectography and various methods of surface close-up photography, also the paint layer structure was put under the microscope. The result was compared with other works of Caravaggio's Roman and Neapolitan time. The research came to the conclusion that everything points to a formation of the image in Caravaggio's Roman period, ie the first five years of the 17th century, between the page images of the Cerasi Chapel ( Crucifixion of St. Peter and Paul's conversion ) in Santa Maria del Popolo of 1601 and the Madonna dei Pellegrini by in 1605.
The first written report about the paintings was written in Naples. From there wrote on December 25, 1607 Bruges painter Franz Pourbus his master, Vincenzo I Gonzaga, that a rosary picture by Caravaggio around 400 ducats would have. Ten years later, is to be read in the will of the late 1617 Antwerp painter Louis Finson, that he had bought the painting in Naples. From Finsons estate community of artists acquired by Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Brueghel and Hendrik van Balen the painting to give it to the Dominicans for their church of St. Paul in Antwerp. There, the painting arrived in 1619, in 1782 it was seen by Emperor Joseph II, purchased and brought to Vienna in 1786.