As part of the Raphael anniversary celebrations in 2020, the Gemäldegalerie will be putting on a small, one-room show featuring five depictions of the Virgin Mary from their collection, which will be accompanied by loans from the National Gallery in London and the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett.

The Meeting of the Madonnas in Berlin: 500 Years Since the Death of Raphael Monday 6 April 2020 will mark 500 years since the death of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (born 6 April or 28 March 1483 in Urbino, died 6 April 1520 in Rome), one of the major artists of the Italian Renaissance. This occasion offers a chance to bring together the five depictions of the Virgin Mary from the collection of the Gemäldegalerie in a small, one-room show. The works, which are otherwise not exhibited in the same space, will come together here, entering into a dialogue with loans from the National Gallery in London and the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett. For the first time, the circular Madonna Terranuova (ca. 1505) will be on display together with Raphael’s sketch of the head from the Madonna Terranuova from the Kupferstichkabinett.

A Guest of Honour from London Alongside the outstanding works by Raphael from Berlin, a madonna masterpiece will be visiting Berlin from the National Gallery in London, forming a highlight of the exhibition. The Madonna of the Pinks (1506–08) will be leaving England for the first time since its acquisition by the museum. Raphael painted this devotional image shortly before leaving Florence for Rome, taking inspiration from the famous composition of the Madonna Benois by Leonardo da Vinci, which is now located in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.

Raphael as a Cult Artist This special presentation in Berlin takes a deliberately historical look at the collection of the Berlin museums, showing contemporary audiences the “young Raphael” who was such hot property when the first museum was founded in Berlin in 1830. We trace the exhibition history of Raphael’s madonnas from the Royal Museum Unter den Linden (today the Altes Museum), to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (today the Bode-Museum) and the post-war era in Dahlem, right through to the present day. Along the way, the interesting question of the framing of the paintings by Karl Friedrich Schinkel – still in use today – comes to the fore. The exhibition sheds light on the early acquisition policies of the Gemäldegalerie in the broader context of the history of collecting in Europe. It shows us the image that 19th-century Prussia had of Raphael, but also the timeless Raphael, the creator of pictures of perfect beauty and harmony.