On 9/10/2014 12:07 PM, Victor Manta wrote:
"Terry Reedy" wrote in message
...

http://www.artonstamps.org/Countries...na-awarded.htm


Informative and interesting as always, but I noticed this:
http://www.artonstamps.org/Countries...ine-colors.htm

was later donated by the monks to Augustus III of Saxony. Source:
Wikipedia .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Madonna
That page actually says "In 1754, Augustus III of Poland purchased the
painting for 110,000 – 120,000 francs, whereupon it was relocated to
Dresden and achieved new prominence;[11][12][13] this was to remain
the highest price paid for any painting for many decades. "

Thanks, Terry! On my page from 2009 I quoted from the then text of
Wikipedia. Meanwhile it changed, and for this reason I changed it on my
page too .

You might add a link to the picture file page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:R..._196_cm%29.jpg


which in turn has a link to a nice large image
(3,028 × 4,151 pixels, file size: 15.2 MB)
which gives one about as good a view as one might get in the gallery.

The colors in these images, even the small one, are better than the
top left (Dresden) image on your page, which does not do the painting
justice at all. So I suggest you substitute the same size .jpg from
Wikipedia

Again a similar type of problem. On my page:

http://www.artonstamps.org/Countries...ine-colors.htm


from 2009 I used the most actual image of the painting that I found on
Wikipedia. It changed (apparently in 2012) because, and this is an
assumption, at a certain point the painting was restored, like many
other paintings and frescoes of old masters. The colors became more
vivid, what shocked many art fans.
Because you published papers on art conservation (?)

As a statistician ;-) My wife does technical analysis of art objects.

maybe you can help
me on the subject of the presumed restoration of Sistine Madonna.

We have no particular knowledge. However, I used google translate
on "sistine madonna raphael restoration" to get the German "Sixtinische
Madonna raphel Restaurierung". Searching for that gave as first hit a
May 2012 German news article that was pretty obviously a discussion of
its restoration.
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleto...-11767213.html

translate.google.com gives a slightly mangled English version of

"As the Sistine Madonna was confronted for the Pope's visit last year
with the Madonna di Foligno, she made no good impression. The arrived
from the Vatican Raphael Madonna, almost simultaneously painted like the
Sistine Chapel, was recently restored and looked in their motley colors,
as if she had just left the studio of the painter genius. The Sistine
Chapel, however we noticed suddenly how she had aged. What to do? Should
they also rejuvenate cosmetically and remove their layers of varnish?
The Dresden restorers decided against a fashionable lifting, and their
conservatism deserves respect. Restorations without risk does not exist.
Maintaining the old varnish layer meant, of course, to take the slightly
grizzled appearance of the Sistine Chapel in purchasing. Art dealers
call graphs that look like this, "not fresh" - not so fresh was now the
Sistine Chapel."

When another (restored) Raphael Madonna was exhibited next to the
Dresden version, the latter looked pretty bad. So Dresden restorers
cleaned it up, but did not remove all old varnish.

P2:"But what a surprise: Whoever comes to Dresden, where the five
hundredth birthday is celebrated by Germany's most famous paintings with
intelligent exhibition might think the Sistine Chapel but had been
freshened up a bit, so radiant she looks suddenly, not colorful but
bright. but it was not restored, the rejuvenation came about quite
naturally, she owes the gift you made ​​for her five hundredth birthday:
the new framework including new glazing; the last frame also contained
greenish-gray tones, even in the glazing, it is said, is a greenish tone
was."

P3 goes on about the history of the painting and the 500 year
anniversary book.

For my comparison with older stamps, I left in place, on my updated
page, the image of the un-restored painting but I added for completeness
the new image.