Ezekiel's+Vision;+Raphael,+1518


 * Discovered Copies**


 * Creator || Raphael ||
 * Title || Vision of Ezekiel ||
 * Work Type || painting ||
 * Date || c. 1516 ||
 * Material || oil on panel ||
 * Measurements || 40 x 30 cm ||
 * Repository || Galleria Palatina ||
 * ARTstor Collection || Italian and other European Art (Scala Archives) ||

**HISTORY:** This painting by Raphael is depicting the prophet Ezekiel sitting on a throne shaped by four creatures. These four creatures have faces of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. In this painting God is addressing Ezekiel and is appearing as a man. Ezekiel can actually be found in the bottom left-hand corner in the beam of light. The four creatures used in the painting are the found evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In 1799, French troops took the panel from Florence and brought it to Paris. After the defeat of Napoleon the painting was return to Florence in 1816 and sits in the Galleria Palatina of the Palazzo Pitti (Knackfuss, 2010). Or so we are told.... The painting that is hanging in the Galleria Palatina was actually created by an unknown artist. In 2010, a private collector came to the Galleria and told them that he had the real Raphael painting. The Galleria obviously disagreed; stating that they had the history of the painting that proved it was most likely to be that of Raphael’s. Finally, the private collector convinced the Galleria to test the two paintings side by side. The painting in the private collection was found to have techniques more similar to those of Raphael. But the real give-away was the use of tempera paint in the private collector’s painting, versus the oil paint used in that of the Galleria’s. Raphael would have only painted with oil paint on this type of wood panel (Champlin,1887). The painting in the Galleria Palatina is not a complete flop though. Because the paint and the wood paneling date back to the time when this painting was originally created by Raphael, they have concluded that this is a legitimate copy by a student of Raphael’s in Florence. The story behind the painting, however, remains to be proven true (Kleinbub, 2011).

**Sources:**

Kleinbub, C. (2011). //Vision and the visionary in raphael//. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Knackfuss, H. (2010). //Raphael//. New York: Nabu Press.

Champlin, J. (1887). Raphael. (1887). //Cyclopedia of painters and paintings//. C. Scribner's sons.