Images(4)

Virgin and Child

Artist Bernardino Pintoricchio (also Pinturicchio) Italian, b. circa 1452, Perugia; d. 1513, Siena

Datecirca 1490–1495

MediumTempera and oil on panel

Dimensions13 1/4 x 10 in. (33.7 x 25.4 cm)
Frame: 19 1/2 x 16 5/8 in. (49.5 x 42.2 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Object numberGL.60.17.35

On View

On view

Label TextImagery of the Virgin Mary and Christ child originated in Coptic (Byzantine) Egypt and spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the sixth century. This painting, created for individual devotion in fifteenth-century Rome, depicts the Christ child wearing a tunic resembling those worn by Coptic children.

The colored, embroidered bands on the chest, sleeve, and hem resemble surviving Coptic textiles. Another motif evoking middle eastern cultures are the bands of pseudo-script lining the Virgin’s mantle. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, artists on the Italian peninsula often depicted such bands, in which the letters resemble Arabic but are in no known language.
[L. Humphrey, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCount Camillo Borgia-Mandolini, Perugia, 1902; Comte Grégoire Stroganoff, Rome; seized by the Bolshevik government in 1919; L. Grassi, Florence, 1926 [trafficked heavily wth German officials and dealers-Hofer, Angerer, Posse-sold lots of furniture to C-B]; Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome; Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York, 1929; given to NCMA, 1961.Published ReferencesCorrado Ricci, Pintoricchio (1902, English edition), 238.

Bernard Berenson, Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909), 230.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, New History of Painting in Italy, Vol. 3, Edward Hutton, ed. (London: J.M. Dent & Co., 1909), 295.

Antonio Muñoz, Pièces de Choix de la collection du Comte Grégoire Stroganoff, Vol. 2 (1911), 25, illus. pl. XVII.

Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, Vol. 7, Part 2 (Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1913), 661.

U. Gnoli, Pittori e miniatori nell'Umbria (1923), 295.

Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, Vol. 14 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1933), 255, note 1.

Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture, (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1941), cat. no. 141.

Leaflet for St. James Church, NY, NY (Christmas 1946), illus. cover.

The Samuel H. Kress Collection: North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1960), 76, illus. (b-w) 77 (as by Pintoricchio).

Enzo Carli, Il Pintoricchio (1960), 56 ff.

Self-Realization Magazine (October-December 1967), illus. cover (incorrect credit line).

Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools XV - XVI Century, Vol. 2 (London: The Phaidon Press, 1968), 101-102, illus. fig. 244.

F. Todini, La pittura umbra dal Ducento al primo Cinquecento, 2 Vols. (Milan: 1989), Vol. 1, 293; Vol. 2, illus. fig. 1230.

Cristina Acidini Luchinat, Pintoricchio (Firenze: Scala, 1999), 27, illus. (color).

Pietro Scarpellini and Maria Rita Silvestrelli, Pintoricchio (Milan: Federico Motta Editore, 2003), 154, illus. (color) 152, fig. 22.

Francesco Federico Mancini, Pintoricchio (Milan: Silvano Editoriale, 2007), 155, illus. (color) 156.

Francis Russell, "Pintoricchio in dreamland," (exhibition review) Apollo (May 2008), briefly discussed 100.

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 662, illus. (b-w) 663.
Exhibition HistoryWashington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, "Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture," 1941-1952 (1941 ed.), cat. no. 141.

Perugia, Italy, Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, "Pintoricchio," February 2-June 29, 2008.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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