Olga Raggio

Olga Raggio (5 February 1926 – 24 January 2009) was an art historian and curator who worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over 60 years, and discovered the 'lost' bust of Cosimo I de' Medici by Bartolommeo Bandinelli.

Early life Olga Raggio was born in Rome on 5 February 1926. Her father was Italian, while her mother was Russian.

Raggio graduated from the Vatican Library with a diploma in library science in 1947, and obtained a PhD from the University of Rome in 1949.

Career

Metropolitan Museum 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.

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. 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.

Academic 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.

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