The Leeswood Tondo - Summary (Continued)
If The Tondo came from the Mantuan collection, then it is quite possible that the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua acquired it from one of Raphael's friends after 1520 - Giulio Romano, Raphael's principal assistant, was at the Mantuan court from 1524 until his death in 1546. Romano inherited one half of Raphael's studio property ; if the Tondo had been an exemplar for the Sistine Madonna, then it may have been kept in Raphael's studio and so passed to Romano. In his Mantua house Romano had "arranged the numerous antiquities which he had brought from Rome, with others which he had received from the Duke, to whom he gave many of his own instead."584 It is possible that Federico, or his heirs, acquired some of Romano's Raphael collection, and with it this inheritance.
Another friend of Raphael was Count Baldassare Castiglione, whose mother was a Gonzaga. In November 1520 he was bequeathed "a square piece of cloth painted by the hand of Raphael with the image of the Blessed Virgin", by another of Raphael's circle, Cardinal Bibbiena. The following month, December 1520, he sent from Rome to his mother in Mantua "a picture (or, a square) of Our Lady by the hand of Raphael", with instructions that nobody should be allowed to see it. Both of these Madonnas are still unidentified, or "lost". However circumstances suggest that these two pictures were one and the same.
Raphael and Cardinal Bibbiena were on the closest of terms ; the artist was engaged to the Cardinal's niece, Maria Bibbiena. It has been speculated that The Tondo is an engagement portrait of Maria, who predeceased Raphael and the Cardinal, and that it was in Bibbiena's collection either as a gift from Maria or Raphael, or that Maria had bequeathed it to her guardian.
Whether or not the Madonna in The Tondo is Maria Bibbiena, there is documentary evidence that Cardinal Bibbiena owned a Raphael Madonna, which he bequeathed to Castiglione: and that Castiglione sent a Raphael Madonna, which was "very dear" to him, to his mother in Mantua.
Excerpt from Dr Murdoch Lothian's PhD thesis 'The Methods Employed to Provenance and to Attribute Putative works by Raphael'