The Church of Saint Félix in Champigny-en-Beauce, France, has long been home to a painting of the Virgin Mary, infant Jesus Christ, and young St. John the Baptist. The work was assumed to be a 19th-century copy of a late-15th-century Botticelli original—until recent scientific analysis proved otherwise.
Painting Was Once Thought to Be a Later Copy
The once-overlooked painting depicts a scene in which the Virgin Mary holds the infant Christ, who reaches down to embrace a young St. John the Baptist. For two centuries, it was believed to be a copy of Virgin Mary, Infant Christ, and St. John the Baptist, a c. 1490 painting that is definitively attributed to the Early Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli and his studio.
This assumption remained unquestioned until 2010 when art historian Matteo Gianeselli noted striking similarities between the Saint Félix Church painting and another work from Botticelli’s studio. Collaborating with fellow experts, Gianeselli studied the painting further. From 2021 to 2022, the painting was shown alongside its already authenticated prototype in a Botticelli exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. In 2023, when the painting underwent restoration, French researchers determined its true origins.
Scientific Analysis Reveals Botticelli’s Hand
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterScientists used micro-sampling and X-ray analysis to compare the two paintings to a third painting—another studio version of the same Botticelli original, which belongs to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, UK. Extensive analysis revealed that the three paintings all used the same egg tempera and oil paint, as well as two coats of gesso as a base. The palette of the Saint Félix Church painting also contained pigments typical of Botticelli’s studio, as well as paint additives specific to Italian Renaissance art.
It turns out that the Saint Félix Church painting dates back to about 1510, shortly after Botticelli painted the original version. Scientists also ascertained that multiple artists from Botticelli’s studio contributed to the painting. The artist himself likely painted some of the details, such as the Virgin Mary’s face, which the research team says shows more “precision” than the other faces. Because Botticelli died in May of 1510, the exact extent of his contributions to the painting is unknown. However, in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, it was very common for a master artist’s studio to create copies of an especially successful painting—and for a master artist like Botticelli to contribute to it himself.
Exhibition to Feature Newly Authenticated Botticelli
The original version of Botticelli’s Virgin and Child with the Young St. John the Baptist and the newly authenticated Saint Félix Church version are the subject of a new exhibition. Botticelli: Two Madonnas at Chambord, which is co-curated by Gianeselli, opens on October 19 in the chapel of the Château de Chambord in France’s Loire Valley. “We are honored to receive these two pieces,” said Pierre Dubreuil, director of the Domaine National de Chambord, in a statement. Dubreuil also noted the paintings serve as a reminder that “the Loire Valley was, and still is, the land of the Renaissance where the influence of Italian artists was fundamental.”
