Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Friday 20 October 1939, page 6


Uli

ENIIINE RAPHAEL FOUND i

In South America

DETROIT Mrs. Ruth Van' Sickle Ford, President of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, said yesterday

that she felt certain the "Madonna

1 of '. Bogota" was a genuine painting

by Raphael. Mrs. Ford (was a guest at the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Turner, of Detroit.

Claims of- Professor, Santiago Martinez Delgado, Professor of Architecture and Fine Arts at the University of Bogota, Colombia the

picture, have been substantiated by documents, X-rays and experiments and I feel certain the painting is a Raphael," she said. a "Professor Delgado brought the painting to Chicago

for examination." '

In Chicago, Leo A, Marzolo, restorer of paintings at the Chicago Art Institute, estimated that the value

of the' painting would not be a cent less than 100 000 dollars',' if it was, proved genuine. ' I

Mrs. Ford said that Marzolo would be commissioned to restore the paint-

ing and' that it would hang in Chicago. Professor

Delgado said he found the picture in a Bogota home and that it had been in the possession of one family, for four centuries. It was generally regarded as a copy of the "Madonna of the Rose" in the Prado

Galleries in Madrid, art experts agreeing the latter painting was the

work of either Giulio Romano or Piercino del -Vaga, pupils of Raphael. In South America the "Madonna of Bogota" was considered as the work of a South American painter, Professor

Delgado said. i