A Raphael goose turns into a swan: in 1970 it was discovered that the version of Raphael's Portrait of Julius II in the National Gallery, London, long thought to be a copy, was in fact the original. In the September issue, Cecil Gould, then the gallery's deputy keeper, explained how this 'sensational' discovery came about

It has taken a century and a half of public ownership to decide the matter. The picture entered the National Gallery at the beginning--with the Angerstein Collection in 1824. A mischievous journalist, wishing to indict the National Gallery of blindness to the treasures in its care, would therefore have to accuse not merely the current staff, or even the totality of the staff since the foundation of the Gallery, but also all other art-historians, native and foreign, during the century and a half that the picture, whether in the main rooms or the depot, has been on view. The true explanation is that many different factors account for the picture's eclipse, and as many, in reverse, for its re-identification.

It entered the gallery under a false provenance (Lancelotti and/or Falconieri Collections) and for a short time in the nineteenth century was regarded as autograph. The true provenance (Borghese) could not be established until the relevant inventories were published a few years ago. On the other hand, the versions in the Uffizi and Pitti in Florence seemed to have an obvious advantage in that they were known to have come from the family--the Della Rovere--of the sitter. As a final complication, all these three versions have been so dirty throughout living memory, and of course never assembled, as to render visual judgement little more than guess-work. Naturally no X-rays have been available until quite recently ... In November 1969 I had a visit from Dr Konrad Oberhuber, of the Albertina, Vienna, in connexion with his work on Raphael. He had already asked for, and been sent, a print of the old X-ray of the head, and had come to wonder if the National Gallery version might not be the original ...

When Dr Oberhuber and I discussed the picture in front of it he reiterated his suspicions more emphatically. I remained very skeptical, but suggested that a complete set of X-ray photographs be taken. In the event, these constituted my Road to Damascus. The astonishing series of pentimenti which were revealed made me change my mind entirely. Not only was there a pattern of crossed keys and tiaras, intended as embroideries, in the curtain behind the sitter, which had been cancelled; various features which had been allowed to appear in the finished picture had also been significantly altered ...

Though in my own mind the thing was now settled it was obviously desirable to clean the picture, which was filthy ... On reflection I find the result fully up to expectation, but a certain notion of caution is perhaps desirable. The name Raphael has had such magic for so many for so long that very few of his productions, when examined critically, are likely fully to live up to it ... if the greatest of all his portraits, the Castiglione (Louvre) or the Leo x and cardinals (Uffizi), were to be cleaned the relative immaturity of the Julius II, as it is now revealed, would be obvious. Nevertheless it is a marvellously accomplished piece of painting.

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