Olga Raggio

Olga Raggio was born in Rome on 5 February 1926. Her father was Italian, while her mother was Russian.{{cite news|newspaper=Corriere Della Sera|language=Italian|date=11 February 2009|title=Olga Raggio, "detective" del Metropolitan|url=http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2009/febbraio/11/Olga_Raggio_detective_del_Metropolitan_co_9_090211055.shtml}}

Raggio graduated from the Vatican Library with a diploma in library science{{cite news|newspaper=The New York Times|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/10/13/issue.html|last=Glueck|first=Grace|title=Art Curator has 30,000 Friends|date=13 October 1971|access-date=June 22, 2015}} in 1947, and obtained a PhD from the University of Rome in 1949.{{cite news|title=Olga Raggio, a Scholar and Art Curator, Dies at 82|last=Fox|first=Margalit|author-link=Margalit Fox|date=6 February 2009|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/arts/design/06raggio.html|work=The New York Times|access-date=7 February 2009}}

In 1950, Raggio received a Fulbright Fellowship to Columbia University. She also joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as a junior research fellow.{{cite journal|url=https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/pdfs/publications/alumni_newsletter2009.pdf|journal=Alumni Newsletter|title=In Memoriam: Olga Raggio|last=Wardropper|first=Ian|number=45|page=18|publisher=New York University Institute of Fine Arts|date=Summer 2009}}

Raggio's curatorial career climbed steadily, from assistant curator in 1954 to full curator in 1968, and chair of the department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts between 1971 and 2001. Her responsibilities encompassed the entirety of the museum's art collections dating between 1400 and 1900 other than painting or drawing. She was mentioned as a candidate to succeed Thomas Hoving as the Metropolitan Museum's director in 1977, but the post went to Philippe de Montebello.

Raggio's research concentrated on Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, notably Alessandro Algardi and Gianlorenzo Bernini. Her other contributions include a study, reconstruction and installation in the museum of the Blumenthal Patio from the Spanish castle of Vélez Blanco in 1964; the chapel of Bastie d’Urfé; and the conservation of Federico da Montefeltro's studiolo (private study) taken from the ducal palace of Gubbio. Her investigations resulted in the rediscovery of two sculptures (Priapus and Flora) by the Berninis, father and son, which were found in the garden of Delbarton School in a Benedictine abbey in Morristown, New Jersey,{{cite journal|title=The Tale of Flora & Priapus|first=Fr. Beatus|last=Lucey|journal=Delbarton Today|date=Spring 2009|url=http://www.delbarton.org/parents/delbartontoday/del.today_summer2009.pdf|pages=19–20|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718131915/http://www.delbarton.org/Parents/delbartontoday/Del.Today_Summer2009.pdf|archive-date=2011-07-18}}{{cite news|newspaper=The New York Times|title=Found in a Garden: 2 Bernini Statues|last=Lopez|first=Rosemary|date=27 March 1977|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977/03/27/83722104.html?pageNumber=416|access-date=June 22, 2015}} as well as a bust of Cosimo I de' Medici by Baccio Bandinelli, which had been locked away in a vault in a Swiss bank.

Raggio organised some of the museum's most famous exhibitions including The Splendour of Dresden (1978) and The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art (1983).

Raggio retired as Distinguished Research Curator on 31 December 2008.

In 1964, Raggio became an adjunct faculty at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. She taught courses informed by her own research interest, notably Alessandro Algardi, Italian renaissance bronzes and the Studiolo.

Olga Raggio died of cancer on 24 January 2009, aged 82, in the Bronx.

• {{cite journal|jstor=750486|title=The Myth of Prometheus: Its Survival and Metamorphoses up to the Eighteenth Century|last=Raggio|first=Olga|journal=Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes|volume=21|number=1–2|pages=44–62|date=1958|doi=10.2307/750486}}
• {{cite journal|title=The Vélez Blanco Patio: An Italian Renaissance Monument From Spain|journal=The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin|volume= 23|number=4|date=December 1964|last=Raggio|first=Olga|pages=141–176|doi=10.2307/3258177|jstor=3258177}}
• {{cite journal|title=Two Great Portraits by Lemoyne and Pigalle|journal=The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin|volume= 25|number=6|date=February 1967|last=Raggio|first=Olga|pages=219–229|doi=10.2307/3258329|jstor=3258329}}
• {{cite journal|title=Tiziano Aspetti's Reliefs with Scenes of the Martyrdom of St. Daniel of Padua|journal=Metropolitan Museum Journal|volume=16|date=1981|last=Raggio|first=Olga|pages=131–146|doi=10.2307/1512773|jstor=1512773|s2cid=191390032}}
• {{cite book|author1=Olga Raggio|author2=Antoine M. Wilmering|title=The Gubbio Studiolo and Its Conservation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GDByGWicb7wC|year=1999|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|isbn=978-0-87099-925-3}}
• {{cite journal|title=A Giustiniani Bacchus and François Duquesnoy|journal=Metropolitan Museum Journal|volume=40|date=2005|last2=Raggio|first2=Olga|last1= Abramitis|first1=Dorothy}}
• {{cite journal|title=Two Allegorical Sculptures by Francesco Ladatte|journal=Metropolitan Museum Journal|volume=41|date=2006|last=Raggio|first=Olga|pages=121–131|doi=10.1086/met.41.20320664|s2cid=191382730}}

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Category:1926 births

Category:2009 deaths

Category:American art historians

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Category:New York University faculty

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Category:21st-century American women

Category:American women curators

Category:American curators