This Painting Was Thought to Be a Botticelli Copy. Now, Researchers Say It Was Made in His Studio

For centuries, parishioners at a church in a small French town thought that a painting in their collection was a 19th-century copy of a 15th-century artwork by Sandro Botticelli. Now, a new analysis has challenged that narrative. It turns out that the painting isn’t a copy. It actually comes straight from Botticelli’s studio.

The painting depicts the Virgin Mary and a young St. John the Baptist holding the infant Christ, and it’s been in the possession of the St. Félix church in Champigny-en-Beauce, a small town in France’s Loire Valley, since the 1800s, per Artnet’s Devorah Lauter. It bears a striking resemblance to another Botticelli featuring the same subjects painted around 1490. Until recently, church officials assumed their painting was a copy of the Botticelli done centuries later.

In 2023, experts restored and studied the painting, according to a statement from the Domaine National de Chambord, a château and estate in the Loire Valley. Using advanced imaging techniques, researchers determined that the St. Félix work was painted in Botticelli’s studio by various artists, and that Botticelli himself may have worked on the Virgin Mary’s face, which “shows greater softness and precision” than the other faces.

Next, scientists at the National Center for Research and Restoration in French Museums compared the two paintings to a third studio version of the original, reports ARTnews’ Francesca Aton. They found that all three paintings were made using egg tempera and oil paint. They also all featured two coats of gesso as a base. In other words, the church’s painting was a match.

Doubts about the piece’s origins first arose around 2010, when art historian Matteo Gianeselli determined that it had an “uncanny similarity” to Botticelli’s original, according to Artnet. He shared his suspicions with colleagues, which led to further research. In 2021, the two paintings were displayed together in an exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.

Soon, the two paintings will be displayed together again. A new exhibition, “Botticelli: Two Madonnas at Chambord,” will open in the chapel of the Château de Chambord at the end of October. The St. Félix church has loaned the painting to the château for two years, while the original is on loan from the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.

“We are honored to receive these two pieces,” says Pierre Dubreuil, general director of the Domaine national de Chambord, in a statement, per Artnet. The paintings, he adds, are a reminder “that the Loire Valley was, and still is, the land of the Renaissance, where the influence of Italian artists was fundamental.”

“Botticelli: Two Madonnas at Chambord” will be on view at the Château de Chambord in France’s Loire Valley from October 20, 2024, to January 19, 2025.

Ella Feldman | READ MORE

Ella Malena Feldman is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C. She examines art, culture and gender in her work, which has appeared in Washington City Paper, DCist and the Austin American-Statesman.