A picture of Raphael? The AI ​​is sure, the art historians are not

It is Maria, whose gaze is lost in the void in such a tender and fragile way that one can hardly bear it. Grace and dignity - these subtle qualities of painting by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael allow us to enjoy this painting. Her narrow-set eyes, so characteristic of the painter, look good-natured, but also a little shy. Despite this apparent mystical absence, she immerses herself in the caring role for her child: the Jesus child, neat and naked, is visibly at peace with itself.

Mary is entirely the mother who keeps the child at the centre. This serving attitude is wonderfully expressed in the hand: the child holds it, but the mother does not cling, is support and support. But that was it with the enthusiasm. The rest of the picture is less masterful: John the Baptist's gaze has no destination, nor does his mother, Elizabeth, catch the infant Jesus' gaze.

But what is it about this strange picture that the world has never seen? In 1995 collector Anthony Ayers discovered the motif in a shop - and has since done everything to prove that it is a painting by Raphael. However, not only since the scandal surrounding "Salvator Mundi", allegedly by Leonardo da Vinci and auctioned for 450 million dollars, we have known that in the Renaissance the master almost never completed the picture all by himself - the attributions are therefore enormously complicated.

And so it remained with this Madonna discovery with fundraising and ultra-expensive investigations. Ayers died earlier this year, and his greatest wish went unfulfilled — at least not in his lifetime. Because the world has reached a new level in its enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, the chat GPT catapults us into a new era.

Trust in this data art is growing rapidly. And with it the hopes placed in “Art Recognition”, an AI system for art authentication. "The Art Newspaper" now reports that the Zurich company has fed a data set "with all 200 authenticated paintings by Raphael" and comparable contemporary works; now the AI ​​is supposed to recognize brushstrokes and color variations by Raffael.

In any case, the result of the analysis is clear in the case of the mother and child, it is said: 96 percent of the faces of Mary and the Jesus child can actually be attributed to Raphael, the figures of John and Elizabeth, but the background and the drapery by an employee in his Workshop. So far the AI.

And what do the art historians, the trained eye, say? The company "Art Analysis and Research", which conducts scientific and technical studies, comes to the conclusion that the picture comes from the painter's studio in any case. Auripigment was found on the canvas, known only by a few Renaissance painters, including: Raffael. But did he put his hand to it himself? Here the experts do not commit themselves. So it remains, as in pre-AI times, a question of trust that decides on prices in the millions.