Engel mit Schriftband

This calm angel's head is a survivor. It is a fragment of the very first big commission of Raphael's career, an altarpiece he was hired to paint in 1500 for a merchant's chapel in the small town of Citta di Castello, in central Italy. He was still a teenager, around 17 or 18, and you can see his teacher Perugino in the soft modeling, though the grace is already his own. Then, in 1789, an earthquake tore through the church and shattered the panel. What was left of it was cut up and scattered among different collections, and this piece ended up in Paris. When you look at it, you are looking at a rescued corner of a painting that no longer exists as a whole.