Focus on Taddei Tondo and explore the Influence and reception.
The tondo was commissioned by Taddeo Taddei. He was a patron and friend of Raphael, a young contemporary to Michelangelo also working in Florence. Raphael studied and reworked the tondo in two drawings, the versi of The Storming of Perugia now at the Louvre as well as compositional studies for the Madonna del Prato now at Chatsworth House. Raphael also applied the concept of Michelangelo's twisting body of the Christ child stretching across his mother's lap in Bridgewater Madonna.Shortly after its arrival in England, Michelangelo's tondo was sketched by Wilkie, who wrote to Beaumont "your important acquisition of the basso-relievo of Michael Angelo is still the chief talk of all our artists. It is indeed a great addition to our stock of art, and is the only work that has appeared in this northern latitude to justify the great reputation of its author". Cockerell noted in his diary how "the subject seems growing from the marble & emerging into life. It assumes by degrees its shape, features from an unformed mass, as it were you trace & watch its birth from the sculptor's mind".Following its arrival at the Royal Academy, the tondo was sketched by Constable, who published a letter in the Athenaeum of 3 July 1830 praising the way it was lit, "showing the more finished parts to advantage, and causing those less perfect to become masses of shadow, having at a distance all the effect of a rich picture in chiaroscuro". With its differing degrees of finish the tondo is an outstanding technical study piece; plaster casts may be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum.
Raphael Chatsworth House Cockerell Florence marble Constable Madonna del Prato composition Louvre versi Athenaeum tondo Fitzwilliam Museum chiaroscuro Wilkie Michelangelo Royal Academy plaster casts cross Victoria and Albert Museum Bridgewater Madonna