After more than three years of restoration, Rubens' Madonna of the Basket returns to Pitti Palace

After a painstaking restoration of more than three years, Rubens ’ Madonna of the Basket has returned to the Palatine Gallery of the Pitti Palace in Florence. As of today, the masterpiece by the celebrated Flemish artist is once again on public view in the Sala di Giove, decorated with mythological-themed frescoes by Pietro da Cortona; the splendid painting will be in dialogue with masterpieces such as Raphael’s La Velata, Giorgione’s Three Ages of Man by Giorgione, Andrea del Sarto’s Saint John the Baptist, Perugino ’s Madonna del Sacco and Bronzino ’s Portrait in Armor of Guidobaldo della Rovere as well as works by Guercino and Justus Sustermans.

The condition of the Madonna of the Basket before the restoration was severely compromised: the accumulation, over time, of heavy restoration work on the surface of the seventeenth-century work had given it, due to the overlapping of varnishes, a yellowed, flat appearance, completely deprived of the liveliness that originally characterized the work. In some places the color was raised or detached. The careful restoration was carried out by theOpificio delle Pietre Dure, a team of specialists, such as Francesca Ciani Passeri and Patrizia Riitano with Andrea Santacesaria, who progressively removed all the added layers of varnish and restored to the Rubensian masterpiece its intense and variegated chromatic quality, as well as softened the wooden support, which had been excessively stiffened due to an old consolidation operation.

Cecilia Frosinini, supervisor of the restoration, said, "Now in the Madonna of the Basket it is once again possible to admire the details of the flesh tones and hair styles, which refer to an all-Flemish truth of the naturalistic rendering of the characters and bring the sacred protagonists closer to the domestic portraiture so dear to Rubens. Another outstanding element, after cleaning, then turns out to be the beautiful carpet that again directs toward the material richness of the almost ante litteram still-life pieces, which the artist introduced into his works to allude to the social status of the patrons."

"That of the Madonna of the Basket is another great return of a masterpiece to the Palatine Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in just three months," added the director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike Schmidt, "in July, after 75 years of absence due to a theft by the Nazis, we were able to welcome back the legendary Vase of Flowers by the Dutchman Jan Van Huysum. A few weeks later we brought to the Sala della Berenice the moving Madonna of the Cat by Federico Barocci, which had remained out of the public eye in the Uffizi’s storerooms for more than a decade, and the coeval copy of Caravaggio’s Betrayal of Christ, also restored. We will continue on this path, to make the Pitti Palace, as it deserves, the greatest treasure chest of art treasures in Florence."

In addition, during the diagnostic analysis that preceded the restoration, traces of paper emerged on the surface of the painting, which could be traceable to the preparatory cartoon used by Rubens.

Image Pieter Paul Rubens, Holy Family with St. Elizabeth and St. John also known as Madonna of the Basket (c. 1615; oil on panel, 114 x 88 cm; Florence, Palatine Gallery, Palazzo Pitti)

After more than three years of restoration, Rubens' Madonna of the Basket returns to Pitti Palace

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