The inconspicuous church painting turns out to be made by Botticelli’s studio

According to experts, a painting in a Catholic church in central France, long thought to be a 19th-century replica of a Sandro Botticelli canvas, is in fact the work of the artist’s studio.

“Virgin Mary, Infant Christ and Young Saint. John the Baptist” (around 1510), which hung in the church of St. Felix in Champigny-en-Beauce, will go on public display at the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley this month alongside its original counterpart by Botticelli in an exhibition aimed at examining duplicates of Renaissance studio painting.

Questions about the work’s attribution had been raised since 2010 by art historian Matteo Gianeselli, curator, but the painting was ultimately dismissed as a much more recent copy by an artist unrelated to Botticelli. In June 2023, the timeless image of the Virgin and Child was finally sent for analysis and confirmed to date from 1440 to 1510 and is attributed to the Florentine studio of an Italian artist.

The original, written by Botticelli himself, “The Virgin and Child with the Young St. John the Baptist” (1490–1495), is in the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and is currently on loan to the Château de Chambord.

The results of an October 2023 study at the Center de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France on the once inconspicuous church painting used binocular microscopy, microsampling and X-ray analysis to authenticate the work.

Research showed that the painting was made in egg tempera, an ancient technique that was created before the introduction of oil paint. The analysis also showed that the pigments in the work were consistent with Botticelli’s color palette.

Both works depict Mary holding Baby Jesus stretching towards Saint. John the Baptist and embraced by him; however, in the newly recognized work the group of figures is reversed. Art historians suspect that Botticelli used the so-called spolvero or powder a technique for transferring a basic drawing to a new canvas.

“To avoid exact duplication, the original scene was repeated with variations consisting in this case of reversing the group of characters and varying the background,” explains Château de Chambord in a press release.

Botticelli studied under Filippo Lippi and later in 1475 gained the patronage of the Medici family, introducing him to Florentine high society as an influential painter.

“We are honored to receive these two works,” Pierre Dubreuil, director general of the Domaine National de Chambord, where the Renaissance castle is located, said in a statement. “Reminding us that the Loire Valley was and still is a land of the Renaissance, where the influence of Italian artists was fundamental.”