The Triumph of Venice
Artist
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni
Italian, 1708–1787
Date1737
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions68 5/8 x 112 5/8 in. (174.3 x 286.1 cm)
Frame: 82 1/4 x 126 1/4 x 4 in. (208.9 x 320.7 x 10.2 cm)
Frame: 82 1/4 x 126 1/4 x 4 in. (208.9 x 320.7 x 10.2 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Object numberGL.60.17.60
On View
Not on view[1] Catalogo dei quadric esistenti nella Galleria Manfrin in Venezia, n.d., no. 10, as 2 m 89 cm x 1 m 78 cm.
[2] According to Ernst Emmerling, Pompeo Batoni, sein Leben und Werk, PhD. Dissertation, University of Cologne, 1932, p. 131, no. 183. According to the Getty Provenance Index’s Public Collections database, “Foscarini was a scholar and writer, much involved with historical studies of Venice; he became doge in 1762….The latest (1992) Kress exhib. cat. entry for this picture says he still owned [it] in 1745….”
[3] According to Francis Haskell, “Francesco Guardi as Vedutista and Some of His Patrons,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23, no. 3/4 (1960), p. 260, Girolamo Manfrin was a wealthy tobacco merchant who founded his collection in 1748, advised by Pietro Edwards and Sig. Gio. Battista Mingardi. The collection consisted of over 400 paintings. According to Haskell, Patrons and Painters, London, 1980, pp. 380–81, Manfrin’s collection was “apparently designed to give a general view of the history of Italian (and to some extent Flemish) painting.” Manfrin was also known as a patron of contemporary artists. The collection was one of the chief tourist attractions in Venice. Emmerling mistakenly said Batoni’s Triumph of Venice was sold in 1850, however it is listed as no. 10 in Catalogo dei quadri esistenti nella galleria Manfrin in Venezia, Venice, [1856]. According to the Getty Provenance Index’s database for Public Collections, the “collection…was inherited by Pietro Manfrin, then by Giulia-Giovanna Manfrin-Plattis; upon her death (1848/9) [the] collection [was] divided between Antonio-Maria Plattis and Botolina Plattis, widow of Baron Sardagna; some or all of Bortolina’s portion remained in Venice….”
[4] Getty Provenance Index Collections Database places Anonymous collection, Trieste and Anonymous collection Vienna between Manfrin and when the painting was taken to America.
[5] The NYTimes obituary for Julia Lorillard Butterfield published 7 August 1913 noted that she was the widow of Gen. Daniel Butterfield. General Daniel Adams Butterfield (1831–1901), who was trained as a lawyer but led his New York regiment as part of the Union Army during the Civil War. Butterfield’s father was President of the Overland Stage Company in 1848. At the time of Julia Lorillard’s marriage to Butterfield, she was the widow of Frederick P. James, who had left her a half interest in a $1,000,000 estate and a house at 400 Fifth Avenue and a country home, Cragside, Cold Spring-on-the-Hudson. Another article in the NYTimes published on 16 August 1913 reported that the bulk of her estate, estimated to be worth $3,000,000, was left to the YMCA. The same article notes, “A large painting by Pompeo Bartoni [sic], the ‘Triumph of Venice’ goes to the New York Public Library….” It is not known why this painting was included in her 1916 estate sale, however, an article published by the NYTimes 18 November 1913, reported that three sets of litigants were contesting her will.
[6] Rougeron was a restorer and may have been acting as a dealer.
[7] Anthony M. Clark, ed. By Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni, New York, 1985, p. 213, no. 13, places the International Financing Co. before the 1955 sale. It is more likely, however, that the company purchased the painting at the sale. A number of paintings went from International Financing Co. to Kress in 1956/7, suggesting it may have been some kind of offshore tax shelter used by Kress, who died in 1955, as noted in the provenance for the NCMA's Botticelli tondo. It is also possible that it was the anonymous seller in 1955.
Published ReferencesValesio, 1700-42, XX, fol. 132v
Francesco Benaglio, "Abbozzo" Della Vita Del Pittore Lucchese Pompeo Battoni ora Edito Per La Prima Volta (c. 1750-53, 62-63). In A. Marchesan, Vita e prose scelte di Francesco Benaglio, 1894.
F. Algarotti, Opere, Vol. 13 (1791-4), 217 ('il Venezia appreso il procurator Foscarini').
Venice, Manfrin Gallery, Catalogo dei quadri esistenti nella Galleria Manfrin, (1856), 2, no. 10.
American Art News 16, no. 7 (November 24, 1917), 1, illus.
Ernst Emmerling, Pompeo Batoni: Sein Leben und Werk (Inaugural Dissertation), (Darmstadt, Germany: Gedruckt von H. Hohmann, GmbH, 1932), 22-24, 48-49, 131-32, 139
Anthony M. Clark, "Some Early Subject Pictures by P. G. Batoni," Burlington Magazine 101, no. 675 (June 1959), 232-236, illus. 327, no. 32.
The Samuel H. Kress Collection (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), 122, illus. (b-w) 123.
Anthony M. Clark, "Batoni's Triumph of Venice," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin, 4, no. 1 (Fall 1963), 4-11, illus. (b-w) 4, fig. 1, details (b-w) 10, fig. 5, and front cover.
Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, Revised and Enlarged Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 259, 357, 381 illus. 265, pl. 45.
Henry Hawley, "Neoclassicism in Italian pictures," Antiques 536, no. 3 (September 1964), 316-319, illus. 317.
"The Connoisseur's Diary," Connoisseur 157, no. 632 (October 1964), 102, illus.
Anthony M. Clark [Title?] ([Publisher?] 1967), 104, illus. fig. 122.
Isa Belli Barsali, ed., Mostra di Pompeo Batoni: Catalogo, Promossa dall'Amministrazione Provinciale di Lucca, Luglio-Settembre, 1967 (Lucca, Italy: Maria Pacini Fazzi Editore, 1985), illus. 41.
We the People (October 1967), illus. 27.
Philipp Fehl, "A Literary Keynote for Pompeo Batoni's The Trumph of Venice," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 10, no. 3 (March 1971), 2-15, illus. (b-w) 2, details (b-w) 4, front cover.
Philipp Fehl, "Pictorial Precedents for the Representation of Doge Lionardo Loredano in Batoni's Triumph of Venice," North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 11, no. 4 (Spring 1973), 20-31, illus. (b-w) 20, detail (b-w) 22, fig 1.
Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XVI-XVIII Century, Vol. 3 (London: Phaidon Press, 1973), 119-120, illus. fig. 240 (K2149).
Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787): A Loan Exhibition of Paintings, November 17-December 18, 1982 (New York: Colnaghi, 1982), 5, 7, 54, illus. fig. 1.
Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 211.
Eduard Hüttinger, Il "mito" di Venezia, in Venezia Vienna: Il mito della cultura veneziana nell'Europa asburgica, Giandomenico Romanelli, ed. (Milan: Electa Editrice, 1983), [187(6?)]-191, illus. 188-191, figs. 202-204, detail (color) 190.
Anthony M. Clark, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, Edgar Peters Bowron, ed. (Oxford, England: Phaidon Press, 1985), cat. no.13, detail (color) pl. 1, illus. pl. 16 (also see 25, 40, 40).
Albert Boime, Art in an Age of Revolution 1750-1800: A Social History of Modern Art, Vol. 1 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), no. 2.1, illus. 54.
Carlpeter Braegger, I Leoni (Venice: Edizioni Remer, 1989), 10, 11, illus. 11.
William L. Barcham, The Religious Paintings of Giambattista Tiepolo: Piety and Tradition in Eighteenth-century Venice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 5, illus. fig. 1.
Introduction to the Collections, rev.ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 198.
D[avid] S[teel], "A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Winter 1993), mentioned and illus. (b-w) 8, conservation note and details (b-w) 10.
Chiyo Ishikawa, et al, A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection (exhibition catalogue) (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994), cat. no. 45, 236-241, illus. (color) frontispiece, 61, 237, details 239 fig. 2,3.
Venezia: Da Stato al Mito (exhibition catalogue) (Venice: Fondazione Cini, 1997), cat. no. 32, 349-50, illus. (color) 209, details (color) 210-11.
David Steel, entry for The Triumph of Venice, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, Rebecca Martin Nagy, ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 143-45, illus. (color) 144, detail (color) 142.
Eduard Hüttinger, Licht und Farbe - Zur Kunstgeschichte Italiens (Zürich: Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, 2001), 357, illus. (b-w) pl. 50.
Pierre Rosenberg, Only in America (Milan: Skira Editore, 2006), 126, 238, 338, illus. (color) 127.
Edgar Peters Bowron and Peter Björn Kerber, Pompeo Batoni: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome (exhibition catalogue) (New Haven and London: Yale University Press in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2007), discussed 3-5, illus. (color) 4, fig. 3.
Iain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), discussed 1-5, illus. (color) 2, pl. 4, and detail facing 1.
Christopher M. S. Johns, "Pompeo Batoni" (exhibition review), The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1261 (April 2008), briefly discussed 270.
Carla Salvaterra and Berteke Walldijk, eds., Paths to Gender: European Historical Perspectives on Women and Men (Pisa: Edizioni Plus - Pisa University Press, 2009), detail (color) cover.
Javier Sánchez Márquez, "De la infancia en Dresde al tálamo en Parténope: el pasaje áulico de María Amalia de Sajonia por la República de Venecia," in Reales Sitios 46, no. 182 (2009), 28, detail (color) 29, fig. 1.
David Steel, entry for The Triumph of Venice, in North Carolina Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2010), 302-303, illus. (color) 305, detail (color) 304.
Bernard Beatty, “A ‘More Beloved Existence’: From Shakespeare’s Venice to Byron’s Venice,” in Venice and the Cultural Imagination, Michael O’Neill, Mark Sandy, and Sarah Wootton, eds. (London: Pickering and Chatto, Ltd., 2012), discussed 18–19, illus. (b-w) 17.
Stéphane Loire, “Les collections de peinture baroque aux États-Unis: un point de vue européen (Collections of Baroque Paintings in the USA: A European Perspective),” in Aux origins d’un gout: La peinture baroque aux États-Unis (Creating the Taste for Baroque Painting in America) (Paris: Paris Tableau SAS, 2015), illus. (color) 24, fig. 3.
Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, in association with The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2016), Vol. 1, cat. no. 12, illus. (color) 18.
Angelica Daneo, ed. Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance (exhibition catalogue) (Denver: Denver Art Museum, 2016), cat. no. 2, illus. (color), also illus. detail (color) 16 and briefly discussed 18.
Jodi Cranston, Green Worlds of Renaissance Venice (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019). Discussed 87–88, illus. (b-w) 87.
Lyle Humphrey, "Saul Among the Prophets: W.R. Valentiner, Robert L. Humber, Carl W. Hamilton, and the Italian Collection at the NCMA," Lisandra Estevez, ed., Collecting Early Modern Art (1400-1800) in the U.S. South (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021), 23, 39.
Keith Christiansen, Anna Ottani Cavina, eds. Creating the Taste for Baroque Painting in America (Paris: Paris Tableau, 2015), illus. (color)Exhibition HistoryRome, Italy, Pantheon, St. Joseph's Day Exhibition, February 17, 1739 (St. Joseph's feast day).
Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Museum of Art, "Neo-Classicism: Style and Motif," September 21-November 1, 1964, cat. no. 6.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection," February 5-April 24, 1994; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 22-August14, 1994; Seattle Art Museum, September 15-November 20, 1994; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, December 17, 1994-March 4, 1995, cat. no. 45.
Venice, Italy, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, "Venezia: Da Stato a Mito," August 30-November 30, 1997, cat. no. 32,, illus. (color) 209, details (color) 210-211.
Houston, TX, Museum of Fine Arts, "Pompeo Batoni: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-Century Rome," October 21, 2007-January 27, 2008; London, National Gallery, February 20-May 18, 2008, discussed 3-5, illus. (color) 4, fig. 3.
Lucca, Italy, Fondazione Ragghianti at the Palazzo Ducale, “Pompeo Batoni – L’Europa delle Corti e il Gran Tour,” December 6, 2008–March 29, 2009 (exhibition extended to May 3, 2009).
Denver, CO, Denver Art Museum, “Glory of Venice: Masterworks of the Renaissance,” October 2, 2016–February 12, 2017; Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, March 4–June 18, 2017, cat. no. 2, illus. (color).
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–May 20, 2024.
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Venice and the Ottoman Empire," September 28, 2024-January 5, 2025. Object Rights Statement
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Apollonio di Giovanni di Tomaso
circa 1450–1460
Wendelin of Speyer
July 4, 1472
