The Madonna of Loreto

The composition is after the prototype by Raphael of circa 1509 in the Musée Condé of Chantilly and depicts the Child playing with the Virgin's veil as Saint Joseph looks on from the shadows. It is assumed that the prototype surfaced in 1717 in Loreto, as a gift by the Roman Girolamo Lottorio, where the name Madonna of Loreto derives. Following the French invasion, the painting by Raphael is said to have been taken in the year 1798 to Rome and from there to Paris. The present lot is offered with a Festschrift by S. Vögelin for J. Burkhardt, Die Madonna von Loretto, Zürich, 1870.