The Raising of Lazarus is a large altarpiece by the
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
High RenaissanceThe High Renaissance, in the history of art, denotes the culmination of the art of the Italian Renaissance between 1450 and 1527. Because Pope Julius II patronized many artists during this time, the movement was centered in Rome; it had previously been centered in Florence.The High Renaissance is...
artist
Sebastiano del PiomboSebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the Venetian...
.
In 1516 the archbishop of Narbonne, then Cardinal
Giulio de' MediciPope Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
(later Pope Clement VII), commissioned a
Raising of Lazarus from Sebastiano Luciani (as the artist was then called – the nickname
del Piombo came in 1531) in competition with
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings...
's late masterpiece the
TransfigurationThe Transfiguration is considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, shortly after Raphael's death in 1520...
, commissioned earlier that year for a church in Rome.
The Raising of Lazarus is a large altarpiece by the
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
High RenaissanceThe High Renaissance, in the history of art, denotes the culmination of the art of the Italian Renaissance between 1450 and 1527. Because Pope Julius II patronized many artists during this time, the movement was centered in Rome; it had previously been centered in Florence.The High Renaissance is...
artist
Sebastiano del PiomboSebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the Venetian...
.
In 1516 the archbishop of Narbonne, then Cardinal
Giulio de' MediciPope Clement VII , born Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, was a cardinal from 1513 to 1523 and was Pope from 1523 to 1534.-Early life:...
(later Pope Clement VII), commissioned a
Raising of Lazarus from Sebastiano Luciani (as the artist was then called – the nickname
del Piombo came in 1531) in competition with
RaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings...
's late masterpiece the
TransfigurationThe Transfiguration is considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, shortly after Raphael's death in 1520...
, commissioned earlier that year for a church in Rome. In the event, as described by Vasari the Raphael was preferred, and the Sebastiano sent to his cathedral, which it is unlikely he ever visited. As well as following the Transfiguration chronologically, the theme of
LazarusLazarus is a name found in two separate contexts in the New Testament. Lazarus of Bethany is the subject of a miracle recounted only in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...
's resurrection was especially appropriate for the cathedral at Narbonne, which had relics of Lazarus. Compositional drawings for the figures of Lazarus and his two attendants were supplied by
MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer...
, who, in addition to being a friend of Sebastiano, was eager to show up his bitter rival Raphael.
The
Gospel of Saint JohnThe Gospel of John , is the last of the four canonical gospels. This non synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth...
divides the story of the miracle into three parts: Jesus bids the people take the stone from the tomb, He tells Lazarus to rise, and then He tells him to unbind his shroud. Sebastiano shows the third of these commands. In the background the
PhariseesThe word Pharisees comes from the Hebrew פרושים perushim from פרוש parush, meaning "set apart" . The Pharisees were, depending on the time, a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era...
are depicted plotting Christ's death.
Between about 1715 and his death in 1723, the Regent of France,
Philippe II, Duke of OrléansPhilippe Charles d'Orléans, petit-fils de France, Duke of Orléans , was a member of the royal family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father's palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres...
, persuaded the Narbonne authorities to let him have the painting for the
Orleans CollectionThe Orléans Collection was a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by the French prince of the blood Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723...
in Paris. In 1771 the painting was transferred from wooden panel to canvas and some of the pigments have as a result lost their brightness, most notably the red of Christ's robe, which has turned pink. In the early 19th century
The Raising of Lazarus was part of the collection of the
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
banker
John Julius AngersteinJohn Julius Angerstein , London merchant, Lloyd's under-writer, and patron of the fine arts, was born in St Petersburg, Russia and settled in London in about 1749...
. When the Angerstein collection was bought by the British government in 1824 for the foundation of the
National GalleryThe National Gallery in London, founded in 1824, houses a rich collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900 in its home on Trafalgar Square...
the canvas was catalogued as NG1, making it officially the first painting to enter the National Gallery.
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