Church-found painting confirmed from Botticelli’s studio

Tests have confirmed that a painting found in a church is actually a long-lost Botticelli-era masterpiece.

First hung in the Saint Félix Church, in the Champigny-en-Beauce village of France’s Loire Valley in the 19th century, it remained there undisturbed. Then, in 2010, the painting was spotted by Matteo Gianeselli, a curator at the National Renaissance Museum.

Gianeselli was creating an inventory of Italian works in France’s public buildings and questioned if the painting was actually from Sandro Botticelli’s studio.

The painting, a copy of Botticelli’s ‘Virgin Mary, Infant Christ, and St. John the Baptist’, painted between 1490 and 1495 presents the Virgin Mary holding the son of God as a baby while a young St. John the Baptist kisses him.

Originally, the church members believed the painting was a 19th century copy of the Botticelli original. Tests done by the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, including micro-sampling and X-ray analysis, have determined that the painting was created around 1510, just over a decade after Botticelli’s masterpiece.

It was most probably made in Botticelli’s own studio by several artists, with the master himself lending his hand to key details such as the Virgin Mary’s face, which experts have noted is painted with a greater “precision” than the other characters.

Botticelli died in 1510, so it’s hard to ascertain the full breadth of his contribution to the painting.

The giveaway that this was from the renaissance artist’s studio included the use of shared egg tempera and oil paint with a base of double-coated gesso, all typical of paintings from the era. Other renaissance clues included the similarities in palette, down to the presence of zinc and glass particles used as paint additives.

The copy of ‘Virgin Mary, Infant Christ, and St. John the Baptist’ will be presented side-by-side with Botticelli’s original in an exhibition at the Chapel at Chambord called ‘Botticelli: Two Madonnas at Chambord’, running from 19 October to 19 January 2025.

After that, it will return from the Chapel at Chambord, the Loire Valley’s largest castle, and go to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where the original is usually kept.

It is uncertain yet whether the painting will be returned to the Saint Félix Church in Champigny-en-Beauce.

The worth of the copy is unclear, although The Times reports that another work from Botticelli’s studio was recently estimated by Sotheby’s to be worth up to €5 million. It’s a large sum but significantly less than a full Botticelli original would get. A painting by the master sold for $92 million (€84 million) in 2021.

Sandro Botticelli was a renaissance painter who lived from 1445 to 1510 in Florence. A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, his work is seen as part of art history’s transition from Italian gothic to early renaissance. His masterpieces include ‘The Birth of Venus’, one of the most notable paintings in the Uffizi.