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 believed that a painting in their collection was a 19th-century copy of a 15th-century work of art by Sandro Botticelli. Now, a new analysis has challenged that narrative. It turns out that the painting is not a copy. It actually comes straight from Botticelli’s studio.

The painting depicts the Virgin Mary and a young John the Baptist holding the infant Christ, and has been in the possession of St. Félix Church in Champigny-en-Beauce, a small town in France’s Loire Valley, since the 19th century . per Artnet‘s Devorah Lauter. It bears a striking resemblance to another Botticelli of the same subjects painted around 1490. Until recently, church officials assumed that their painting was a copy of the Botticelli made centuries later.

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

Then scientists from the National Center for Research and Restoration in French Museums compared the two paintings to a third studio version of the original, reports ART newsFrancesca Aton. They discovered that all three paintings were made with egg tempera and oil paint. They also all had two layers of gesso as a base. In other words, the painting of the church was a match.

Doubts about the piece’s origins first arose around 2010, when art historian Matteo Gianeselli noted that it bore an “uncanny resemblance” to Botticelli’s original. Artnet. He shared his suspicions with colleagues, which led to further investigation. In 2021, the two paintings were shown together in an exhibition in the Museum Jacquemart-André in Paris.

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

“We are honored to receive these two pieces,” said Pierre Dubreuil, general manager of the Domaine national de Chambord, in a statement 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 in Chambord” will be on view from October 20, 2024 to January 19, 2025 at the Château de Chambord in France’s Loire Valley.