Artificial intelligence determines that ‘The Virgin of the Rose’, from the Prado, was not painted only by Rafael

2023-12-21 14:35:57

Can an algorithm confirm or debunk the authorship of a work of art? Is artificial intelligence valid to attribute or disattribute said authorship? In the University of Bradford (England) They believe so, but in the scientific community it is taken with great caution, if not with disbelief. Last January the BBC published that a work had been attributed to Rafael thanks to facial recognition technology. A team from the Universities of Nottingham and Bradford used the technology to examine a painting, known as the ‘Brécy Tondo’ – it is in a collection created by Cheshire businessman George Lester Winward and some experts thought it was a Victorian copy. and it was discovered that the faces were identical to those on an altarpiece by Raphael, the ‘Madonna Sixtina’. The similarity between the Madonnas is 97%, while the comparison of the child in both works produced a similarity of 86%. It was concluded that it is very likely that the paintings were created by the same artist.

However, in September we learned that there was a war between artificial intelligences: two teams were fighting over the authorship of a painting by Rafael. A new study by the company Art Recognition gave a contrary verdict on the ‘Brécy Tondo’. Turning a deaf ear, a short time later a gallery (Cartwright Hall, in the British town of Bradford) took a step further and exhibited the AI-authenticated painting for the first time. That caught the attention of Carina Popovici, from Art Recognition. «At first I was excited and saw it as something positive in the artistic community. However, when doubts began to arise about its authenticity, at Art Recognition we decided to carry out our own AI-based authenticity analysis », he explained on social networks. The algorithms applied on this occasion by the specialist yielded just the opposite result: an 85% probability that the painting is not the work of Raphael.

Now, an AI algorithm developed by Hasan Ugail, professor of visual computing at the University of Bradford, returns to the fray with another painting by Raphael, in this case from the Prado collection. ‘The Guardian’ publishes information according to which ‘Holy Family with San Juanito (known as ‘La Vigen de la Rosa’), from the Spanish museum, was not completely done by the master: most of the painting is by Raphael but José’s face is by another hand. The discovery article appeared today published in the journal ‘Heritage Science’.

Howell Edwardsemeritus professor of molecular spectroscopy at Bradford and co-author of the paper, said: “AI program analysis of our work has conclusively shown that, while the three figures of the Virgin, [Jesús] and Saint John the Baptist are unequivocally by Raphael, that of Saint Joseph is not, and has been painted by someone else.

Consulted by ABC, Prado does not want to make any comment about this issue. On the museum’s website, the poster for the work reads as follows: «In 1633 Vicente Carducho mentions in his workshop a painting by Raphael in poor condition that could be this one, which suggests that he was in Castile from an earlier time. . It was possibly transferred to canvas in the first half of the 19th century, modifying its measurements and adding the lower band with the rose that, ironically, gives its name to the work. The absence of the original support and the surface wear They make it difficult to date the painting, which could have been painted around 1517, although there is no information about its commission. There is no doubt about its attribution to Raphaelalthough the traditional interpretation of the painter’s Roman works as puzzles in which different members of the workshop would intervene in one part or another, has led some specialists to consider the participation of the ‘bottega’ in the execution of anecdotal parts of the characters.” At first glance, the figure of Joseph appears much darker and apparently less precisely painted on the left side of the canvas.