This work, commissioned from Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni after the original by Raphael now preserved in the Vatican Museums, has undergone a comprehensive restoration affecting the support, the paint layer and the frame. The intervention was carried out with the collaboration of the Iberdrola Spain Foundation, a Patron of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s Restoration Programme.

It is the largest panel painting in the collection (4.02 × 2.67 m) and also the heaviest, weighing 550 kg (300 kg for the panel and 250 kg for the frame).

Following its restoration, the painting is once again on display in Gallery 49 of the Villanueva Building, dedicated to the Italian School of the sixteenth century. "The Transfiguration of the Lord", attributed to Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni, is a 1:1 copy of the last work painted by Raphael before his death. Commissioned by Giulio de’ Medici, it originally decorated the church of Santo Spirito degli Incurabili in Naples before coming to Madrid. The work offers a fairly accurate record of the forms of Raphael’s original, while omitting almost all details, landscape and vegetation.

During the technical study, reflectography carried out using an infrared device (donated by American Friends of the Prado Museum) supported the cleaning process and the removal of later overpainting from the surface, revealing new and significant details of the extraordinary quality of the underlying drawing.

Almost 200 years after the last intervention, the painting showed significant structural and aesthetic damage, including the opening of joints between the wooden panels and existing cracks, as well as heavy oxidation and alteration of varnishes and earlier retouching. All stages of the restoration proved complex due to the painting’s great size and the difficulty of maintaining a constant overall view of the work. Nevertheless, this collective effort has unquestionably been worthwhile, restoring the originality, integrity and beauty of a work of great value and importance within the collection.