Artwork
Madonna mit dem Schleier (Kopie nach)

Madonna mit dem Schleier (Kopie nach) is a wood painting by the High Renaissance artist Raphael. It dates from 1501 and is held in the collection of the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The work belongs to a long devotional tradition of Marian imagery, presenting the mother of Christ as a focus for veneration and contemplation.
Madonna mit dem Schleier depicts the Virgin Mary as its sole subject, consistent with its classification as a religious painting. The work belongs to a long devotional tradition of Marian imagery, presenting the mother of Christ as a focus for veneration and contemplation.
As a copy after Raphael, the panel reproduces the iconographic conventions of the master's original Madonna compositions, in which the Virgin is rendered as a sacred, maternal presence intended to inspire piety in the viewer. The religious genre designation underscores the image's function as an object of Christian devotion rather than a secular portrait, with the veil itself serving as a traditional attribute of Mary that signals her purity, humility, and status as the Mother of God.
Technique & Style
The work is executed in oil on wood, a support typical of early Renaissance panel painting. Its dimensions are 124.7 × 125.1 cm, presenting an almost square format that accommodates a full-length depiction of the Virgin Mary. As a copy after Raphael, the painting replicates the compositional and stylistic conventions of the original Madonna mit dem Schleier, a devotional image whose design emphasizes the Virgin's modesty through the veil motif.
The handling would reflect the smooth, idealized forms and balanced pyramidal structure characteristic of Raphael's early religious works, even if executed by another hand.
History & Provenance
The work is a 1501 wood painting of religious subject depicting Mary, created by Raphael and held in the Bavarian State Painting Collections at the Alte Pinakothek. Its inception date is recorded as 1501-01-01 with dimensions of 124.7 cm by 125.1 cm.
The painting is held by the Bavarian State Painting Collections and is housed at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. It is catalogued as a copy after Raphael's Madonna mit dem Schleier, executed on wood and dated 1501, with recorded dimensions of 124.7 cm in height and 125.1 cm in width.
No exhibition history is documented in the available sources.
Context
A 1501 wood painting attributed to Raphael depicting Mary was recorded in the Bavarian State Painting Collections and housed in the Alte Pinakothek, where it was studied within the corpus of Raphael's early religious works.
Scholarly assessments of this attributed Madonna mit dem Schleier emphasized its role as a workshop copy that reflected Raphael's compositional innovations in devotional imagery during the early 16th century.
Overview
The work, titled Madonna mit dem Schleier (Kopie nach), is a devotional image executed on wood. Though a later replica, it follows the composition of Raphael’s early 1500s Madonna, portraying the Virgin with child in a serene, intimate setting. The panel is part of the collection of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, where it is displayed among other religious works.
Artist & collection
Artist
Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino on April 6, 1483, the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter and poet attached to the ducal court.


















