Madonna Bridgewater

Raphael was in his early twenties and living in Florence when he painted this small Madonna around 1507, and the city was then the best place in Europe to learn. Leonardo and Michelangelo were both at work there, and Raphael watched them closely. You can see it in the Christ child, who twists in his mother's arms in a restless spiral of the kind Michelangelo loved, while Mary looks down with the tender calm Raphael took from Leonardo. The dark background is not original. It was painted in later, hiding a window that once opened onto sky behind them. The picture takes its name from the Bridgewater family, whose collection carried it to Britain, and it has hung for generations on loan in Edinburgh.