Who owns beauty ? World art and culture in our museums (5)

The Sistine Madonna is the last Madonna painted by Raphael, and one of the master's last works. Commissioned in 1512, the painting was placed before the altar in the chapel of the monastery of Saint Sixtus in Piacenza, Italy. In 1754, the Elector of Saxony
Elector of Saxony Augustus III purchased it for a colossal sum. This translocation took place against a backdrop of economic asymmetry, as the monks had run out of money following poor harvests. Negotiations lasted four years, and the original church was replaced by a copy. The Sistine Madonna was coveted by the French Revolution, who had to leave it in Saxony, and after the Second World War it was taken to Moscow as war booty, where it remained until 1955, when the Soviet authorities decided to return it to Dresden, after a final 90-day free exhibition. Raphael's Sistine Madonna was thus returned to the Dresden museum's Gemalde Gallery, where it had been - despite an interruption - since 1754. Emphasis was placed on the European dimension of this shared heritage, which has been identified by Russian literature and the general public, as well as in Germany and Italy. It is an example of both a national heritage and a heritage that is felt to be shared, arousing desires for appropriation, and whose displacement also provokes a sense of loss.