The Virgin of Humility with Saints Anthony of Padua, John the Baptist, Francis, and Giles

Artist Guariento di Arpo Italian, b. circa 1310, Padua; d. circa 1368 or 1370

Datecirca 1360

MediumTempera and gold leaf on poplar panel

Dimensions16 3/8 x 9 1/8 in. (41.6 x 23.2 cm)
Frame: 17 3/4 x 10 3/4 in. (45.1 x 27.3 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberGL.60.17.17

On View

Not on view

ProvenanceProbably from the Church of San Gilio (Egidio), near Ferrara [1]; Casa Boschini, Ferrara, in 1846 [2]; Achillito Chiesa, Milan, sale, New York, American Art Association, April 16, 1926, lot 22, as Cristoforo da Ferrara, sold to); Julius Haas [3]; with Francis Kleinberger, New York and Paris; sale, New York, American Art Association Anderson Galleries, November 18,1932, lot 32, as Cristoforo da Ferrara, sold to J. Stafford; Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Florence; sold 1937 to Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York; given to NCMA, 1961.

[1] G. Baruffaldi, VIte de’pittori e scultori ferraresi, vol. II, 1846, p. 544.

[2] Ibid.

[3] According to the annotation [E.K. Watehouse?] for the entry on the painting in the 1932 Kleinberger sale.Published ReferencesGiuseppe Boschini (1791–1854), Appendix and notes to Girolamo Baruffaldi (1675–1755), Vite de’ pittori e scultori ferraresi scritte dall’arciprete Girolamo Baruffaldi, con annotazioni [1697–1722], 2 vols, Ferrara:

Domenico Taddei, 1844–1846, vol. 2 (1846), 554.

American Art Association, The Collection of Achillito Chiesa, Part II. Italian Primitives and Renaissance Paintings, A Small Group of Canvases by Flemish and French Masters (New York, April 26, 1926), cat. 22 (as Cristoforo da Ferrara).

Primitive Paintings and Old Masters Gathered by Mr. F. Kleinberger and Mainly from his Private Collection, O. Bernet and H. H. Parke / American Art Association (sales catalogue) (November 18, 1932), cat. 32 (as Cristoforo da Ferrara).

Roberto Longhi, Officina Ferrarese (Roma: Le Edizioni d'Italia, 1934), 9ff, 157, note 10f, illus. figs. 8ff (as an anonymous Paduan in the circle of Guariento).

National Gallery of Art, Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, Washington, DC, The National Gallery of Art, 1941, cat. 459.

Luigi Coletti, I Primitivi, vol. III, I Padani (Novara: Istituto Geografico De Agostini, 1947), 54.

Corrado Padovani, La critica d’arte e la pittura ferrarese (Rovigo: Società ti. Editrice Rodigina, 1954), 142–143.

Roberto Longhi, Officina Ferrarese (1934) seguita dagli Ampliamenti (1940) e dai Nuovi Ampliamenti (1940-1955) (Firenze: Sansoni, 1975), 9ff, 93, note 10f, 193, note 3, illus. figs. 15ff (as an anonymous Paduan in the circle of Guariento).

Roberto Longhi, “Guariento: un’opera difficile,” Paragone, Anno 8, no. 91 (July 1957), 37-40.

The Samuel H. Kress Collection (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), 46, illus. (b-w) 47.

Rodolfo Pallucchini, La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venezia-Roma, 1964), 118.

Flores d’Arcais, Francesca, Guariento (Venice: Alfieri, 1965), 58, 71 ( she states that the Crucifixion in Ferrara came to the Pinacoteca in 1843

Fern R. Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XIII–XV Century, Vol. 2 (London: The Phaidon Press, 1966), 10–11, K1091, illus. fig. 19.

Wolfgang Kermer, Studien zum Diptychon in der sakralen Malerei von den Anfangen bis zur Mitte des Sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, Mit einem Katalog (Dusseldorf: Druck R. Stehle, 1967), 85-86, cat. 87, ill. 106–107 (published Ph.D. dissertation, Eberhard-Karls-Universitat zu Tubingen).

Berenson, Bernard, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. A List of the Principal Artists and their Works with an Index of Places. Central Italian and North Italian Schools, 3 vols., London, 1968, vol. 1, 203.

Burton Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972, 98, 627.

Francesca Flores d'Arcais, Guariento, Tutta la pittura. Venezia: Alfieri, 1974, 39, 71, illus. fig. 119.

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) 172.

Francesca Flores d'Arcais, “Guariento,” in La pittura in Italia. Il Duecento e il Trecento, a cura di E. Castelnuovo, riedizione accrescuita e aggiornata (1st ed. Milan 1985), 2 vols, Milan, 1986, vol. 2, 584–585, at 585.

Rosa D’Amico in La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara: Catalogo generale, ed. Jadranka Bentini (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1990), 92–93, cat. 4.

Francesca Flores d’Arcais, “Guariento,” in La pittura nel Veneto. Il Trecento, ed. Mauro Lucco, 2 vols (Milan,1992), vol. 2, 527–528, at 528.

Rosa D’Amico in La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara: Catalogo generale, ed. Jadranka Bentini (Bologna: Nuova Alfa, 1992), 8–9, cat. 4.

Francesca Flores d'Arcais, “Guariento di Arpo,” in Enc. dell'arte medievale, VII (Rome: Treccani, 1996), pp. 130–135 at 133.

Mojmír S. Frinta, Punched Decoration On Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Part I. Catalogue Raisonne’ of All Punch Shapes (Prague: Maxdorf, 1998), 534, N1N 3.5 (“new frame on Guariento, Madonna of Humility with 4 standing saints below”).

Marco Bussagli, “Guariento Di Arpo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 60 (Rome: Treccani, 2003). Accessed online 2/4/2014.

Perri Lee Roberts, Corpus of Early Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections: The South, Vol. 3 (Athens, GA: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2009), discussed 632, illus. (b-w) 633.

Zuleika Murat, “Una ‘Vergine dolente’ di Guariento: per la ricostruzione della croce opistografa del Fogg Art Museum di Cambridge,” Arte Veneta 67 (2010), 102–117, at 111–112.

David Banzanto in Guariento e la Padova Carrarese (exhibition catalogue), (Padova: Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, 2011), eds. Davide Banzato, Francesca Flores d’Arcais, and Anna Maria Spiazzi, 31, cat. no. 29.2, illus. (color) 185 (the provenance information for the Crucifixion is incorrect).

Trinita Kennedy, ed., Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy (exhibition catalogue) (Nashville: Frist Center for the Visual Arts, 2014), cat. no. 27, discussed and Illus. (color) 150.

Zuleika Murat, Guariento: Pittore di corte, maestro del naturale, (Milan: SilvianoEditoriale, 2016), cat. no. 20.2, discussed 190, illus. (color) 191.

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), 40.Exhibition HistoryWashington, DC, The National Gallery of Art, 1941-52, cat. no. 459.

Padua, Italy, Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, "Guariento d la Padova Carrarese," April 16-July 31, 2011, cat. no. 29.2, illus. (color).

Nashville, TN, Frist Center for the Visual Arts, “Sanctity Pictured: The Art of the Dominican and Franciscan Orders in Renaissance Italy,” October 31, 2014–January 5, 2015, cat. no. 27, illus. (color).
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