Question: We have an art history challenge. I'm working with a student
on the diary of a Swiss travel writer who spent a week among the Creek
Indians in 1824. He compared the appearance of some Creek women to "the
Madonnas of Raphael," and spoke elsewhere of the women of one household
having "perfect little Madonna faces (vollkommene Madonnagesichtchen)."
The date is 1824, and we know of a prominent literary reference to "the
divine Raphael" and his Madonna images in Wackenroder & Tieck's fiction,
Herzensergießungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders (1797, trans.
Confessions of an Art-loving Friar). So we’re interested in finding out
just which painting inspired this work, and whether it might also have
been known to readers ca. 1820.
The editor of Herzensergießungen writes in 1955 that Wackenroder,
author of the "divine Raphael" passages, was familiar at the time with
just one Madonna and Child that was attributed, incorrectly, to Raphael.
This is the "Virgin of Pommersfeld" at "Schloß Pommersfeld." He does
not say who the painting is now attributed to (and we suppose it doesn't
matter). We have not been able to find a reproduction of it.
We have found a 19th-century reference to the painting that attributes
it to either Leonardo or Andrea Solario, and identifies the owner as
Count Sch├╢nborn. http://books.google.com/books?id=fqUaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA245
On locating the painting, the student would like to compare it to a
sketch and watercolor that his Swiss diarist made of a young Creek
woman.
BTW we believe "Schloß Pommersfeld" is identical to Schloß ißenstein
in Pommersfelden, Germany. http://www.schoenborn.de/
Thanks so much,
Suzy Westenkirchner,
Art Librarian ~ Auburn University
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