No Wonder Raphael Is Considered a Genius

[00:00:00]The painting you are looking at was created [music] by Raphael when he was just 21 years old. For more than 500 [music] years, this image has been a mystery to scholars. It was first believed to be a religious portrait [music] until 1936 when, after being restored, it was discovered that what this young woman was actually holding in her lap [music] was a unicorn. But why would someone want to hide this creature? And more importantly, why did Raphael include a unicorn in this painting? This work is called Portrait of a Young Woman with a [music] Unicorn.

[00:00:32]It was painted by Raphael around 1505 and 1506, and today it is held at the Galleria Borghese in Rome. For more than 150 [music] years, nobody knew this painting was by Raphael. In the gallery's 1760 inventory, the work was listed as a portrait of St. Catherine of Alexandria >> [music] >> attributed to the painter Perugino, who was Raphael's teacher. It was not until 1927 that art historian Roberto Longhi proposed that the work was actually by [music] Raphael, and it was not until the 1936 restoration that he was [music] confirmed to be right. If we look at the painting as it is preserved today, [music] the most striking element is the small unicorn the young woman holds in her lap. [music] In the medieval and Renaissance tradition, the unicorn was the universal symbol of chastity and purity. Legend held that only a virgin could tame [music] this creature, and Raphael included it here to convey to the viewer that this young woman is pure, honest, and worthy of marriage.

[00:01:35]But it turns out the unicorn was not always a [music] unicorn. In 1933, the director of the Galleria Borghese, Achille Bertini Colosso, carried out the first x-ray analyses [music] of the work, and he found that beneath the unicorn there had originally been a dog, a small lapdog with drooping ears which Raphael had sketched before painting the unicorn over it. We should remember that in the Renaissance, the dog was the symbol of conjugal fidelity.

[00:02:04]As we have already seen in other paintings such as the Arnolfini portrait by Van Eyck or [music] the Venus of Urbino by Titian, the dog was included in wedding portraits as a symbol of a woman's faithfulness. But Raphael, for reasons we still do not fully understand, decided to replace the dog with a unicorn. In [music] fact, if we look very carefully at the young woman's right sleeve, we can still make out very faintly the outline of the original dog's ears [music] beneath the layers of paint. But the change Raphael made from dog to unicorn was only the first.

[00:02:38]>> [music] >> The second change was made by someone else entirely decades after the artist's death. [music] Around 1682, an anonymous artist found the painting in a state of deterioration.

[00:02:50]The inventory of that period describes it as badly flaking. And instead of restoring it, he decided to repaint it.

[00:02:58]What this anonymous artist did was transform the young woman with the unicorn into St. [music] Catherine of Alexandria, a 3rd century Christian martyr. To do this, he concealed the unicorn [music] beneath a thick layer of paint and replaced it with the spiked wheel on which Catherine had been tortured. He also added a palm [music] frond, a symbol of martyrdom, and finally covered the young woman's bare shoulders with a heavy cloak, [music] apparently for reasons of modesty.

[00:03:25]Because of this, for more than 200 years, nobody [music] knew this painting was by Raphael, nor that there was a unicorn beneath the torture wheel. And of course, nobody knew that beneath the unicorn there was a dog. But although we now know what Raphael's original work looked [music] like, there is still something that has historians completely divided, and that is the identity of this woman. But before we discuss this, I would like to remind you that if you would like to have this portrait in your home, you can now purchase [music] it from our website. In the link in the description, you can visit our catalog with more than 900 carefully selected historical works, [music] so you can choose your favorites and begin your own art collection. Shipping is free worldwide, and as [music] you are seeing in this video, with our reproductions, you can turn your home into your own [music] personal museum. I will leave the link in the description, so you can place [music] your order once you finish watching this video. As I was saying, there are several theories about the identity of this young woman. The most widely accepted among historians suggests she could be Maddalena Strozzi, the woman who married the Florentine merchant Agnolo Doni around 1504.

[00:04:37]Raphael painted a portrait of Agnolo Doni at almost the same time, and some experts believe that the portrait of a young woman with a unicorn was the pendant portrait, [music] meaning the complimentary portrait of his wife. Even the Galleria Borghese, where the painting is held today, points to this identification as [music] the most plausible. Other historians propose that she could be the 13-year-old Laura Orsini della Rovere, >> [music] >> whose family used the unicorn as their heraldic emblem, which would make the unicorn not only a symbol of chastity, but also a direct reference to the family's lineage. But neither theory has been confirmed, >> [music] >> and there is a detail that complicates the identification even further, one that you have probably not noticed, and that [music] is that the young woman is not wearing any rings. Not an engagement ring, not a wedding ring, something quite unusual, given that Renaissance wedding portraits almost always included jewelry marking a woman's marital status. Finally, I would like to mention something quite interesting about this painting.

[00:05:42]>> [music] >> You have probably already noticed that this painting bears an obvious resemblance to Leonardo's Mona Lisa.

[00:05:49]Both women are shown in a three-quarter pose placed before a landscape that recedes toward the horizon, and both were painted around the same time, and this is no coincidence. What historians have documented is [music] that when Raphael arrived in Florence in 1504 at the age of 21, he set out to learn from the two most important artists of his time, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. There is also evidence that Raphael visited Leonardo's studio on several occasions where he had the opportunity to observe the Mona Lisa up close while it was still being painted.

[00:06:25]What Raphael did with what he saw was not simply imitate [music] it. According to the art historian Christoph Thoenes, Raphael adopted without hesitation the pose, [music] the spatial organization, and the compositional structure of Leonardo's portrait, but he added something of his own. Where the Mona Lisa has an enigmatic ambiguity and a smile that no one has ever fully been able to decipher, [music] the young woman in Raphael's portrait has something completely different, a cool, serene, and direct gaze.

[00:06:57]>> [music] >> Now, although the portrait of a young woman with a unicorn was painted more than 500 years ago, in all that time it has been repainted, restored, misattributed, and even rediscovered. We could describe this work as an extraordinary portrait of someone whose name we do not know with a mysterious animal in her lap painted by a genius who at just 21 years old showed the world his remarkable talent. However, I would love to ask you what you think Raphael's intention was in replacing that small lap dog with a unicorn. What other meaning do you think this fantastic creature might hold? I would love to read your thoughts in the comments. As always, thank you for staying until the end. Remember to visit the link in the description, and I will see you in the next video.