Raphael Composing the Madonna della Sedia - Friedrich Eduard Eichens

A detailed steel engraving depicting the legendary moment Raphael sketches his famous 'Madonna della Sedia' onto a wine barrel.

This steel engraving by Friedrich Eduard Eichens depicts a romanticised scene from the life of the Italian Renaissance master, Raphael. The composition illustrates the popular legend surrounding the creation of the 'Madonna della Sedia', in which the artist is said to have sketched the composition onto the circular head of a wine barrel while observing a mother and child. Eichens, a skilled German engraver, captures the narrative with precise, clean lines that define the figures and the architectural setting.

The scene is populated by various onlookers, including the mother and child who serve as the subjects for the sketch, and a group of observers gathered to witness the artist at work. The composition is balanced, with Raphael positioned centrally, seated upon a barrel, his hand extended to draw upon the wood. The surrounding figures are arranged to draw the eye toward this central action. The style reflects the mid-nineteenth-century interest in historical anecdotes concerning the lives of great masters, a theme frequently explored by artists associated with the Nazarene movement and their contemporaries in Germany.

Eichens was known for his technical proficiency in translating oil paintings into the medium of steel engraving, a process that allowed for the wide dissemination of such historical narratives. The print retains the original German inscription at the base, which identifies the subject and notes the original painting's dimensions and its provenance at the time, specifically mentioning its ownership by Herr Teichmann, an attaché to the Royal Hanoverian Legation in Berlin. This work provides a clear example of the nineteenth-century fascination with the creative process of the Old Masters, presented through the meticulous craft of the engraver.