The de Brécy Madonna and Child tondo painting: a Raman spectroscopic analysis

Raman spectra have been obtained from a Madonna and Child tondo painting, known as the de Brécy Tondo. Despite the provision of only a small number of microscopic samples, definitive spectra were obtained from mineral pigments. From one specimen, spectra of an organic binder enabled the consideration of several possibilities to be accomplished and a suggestion proposed for the medium. In another specimen the identification of the spectral signatures of Prussian blue, which was only synthesised some 200 years after the predicated date of execution of the painting, indicated that some unrecorded restoration had been undertaken later in the painting's history. Research carried out on this tondo from 1987 to 1991 indicated the probability that it is the work of Raphael, a conclusion supported by further research recently undertaken on the provenance. The stylistic similarity of the tondo to Raphael's Sistine Madonna is very clear; the pigments identified in this analysis are consistent with a Renaissance attribution for the de Brécy Tondo.