La Perla (painting)

La Perla (literally The Pearl) is a 1518-1520 oil on canvas painting by Raphael.

At this stage clearly influenced by his encounter with Leonardo (1513-1516) the pyramidal arrangement of the characters, the light contrasts and the recreation of a landscape that is no longer idealized but realistic are proof of it.

X-Rays shows that there was a first version in the underlying layer that follows very much the original drawing (obvserved means of the reflectography).Therefore it is logical to point out that there were two phases in the execution of the canvas; a first one that followed the drawing and a later one that introduced substantial changes to the appearance of the work in order to produce a great tension instead of the initial serene calm of the characters.

[1] It may be identifiable with the painting mentioned in Vasari's Lives of the Artists as made for Ludovico Canossa (Bayeux's bishop).

Later Galeazzo Canossa ceded to Vincenzo I Gonzaga.The painting definitely passed to Charles I of England in 1627 and after his execution it passed into the hands of one of its creditors, Edward Bass, from whom Alonso de Cárdenas bought it on behalf of Don Luis de Haro.