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Giovanni Battista Piazzetta

Madonna and Child Appearing to Saint Philip Neri, probably 1725 or after

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 112.4 x 63.5 cm (44 1/4 x 25 in.)

framed: 135.9 x 87.6 x 9.5 cm (53 1/2 x 34 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.82

Artists / Makers

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (artist) Italian, 1683 - 1754

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Private collection, Rome, by 1941.[1] (Antiquaria, Rome) on consignment January 1950 to (Adolph Loewi, Los Angeles);[2] by whom sold 12 May 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] See Morandotti, Alessandro, Mostra di pittura veneziana del settecento, exh. cat. Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Venice, 1941.

[2] According to Loewi records. The Antiquaria Gallery in Rome was run by Alessandro Morandotti, who had been director of the Loewi gallery in Venice and took over operations of it in 1939 when the Loewi family left Italy. Morandotti moved the business to Rome and renamed it Antiquaria, and eventually acquired the businessfrom Loewi in 1950.

[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1345.

Associated Names

Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Lady Carnegy of Lour
Loewi, Adolph
Morandotti, Alessandro

Exhibition History

1941: Mostra di pittura veneziana del settecento, Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome, 1941, no. 10, repro. (cat. by Alessandro Morandotti).

1950: The Samuel H. Kress Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1950-1953, no. 24 (cat. by William Suida in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 46/277, 1950).

1994: The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century, Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice, 1994-1995, no. 73, repro. (shown only in London and Washington).

2009: Venice in Canaletto's Age, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 2009-2010, no catalogue.

2010: La Serenissima : Eighteenth-Ventury Venetian Art from North American Collections, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2010-2011, no. 13, repro.

Technical Summary

The support is a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric prepared with a thick, dark brown ground containing coarsely ground pigment particles. Over this was applied a reddish imprimatura that was allowed to show through in thinly painted passages and which functions as the shading of most figures. The design elements were laid in with freely applied, slightly thick strokes of light brown paint. The main figures were then painted with a heavily loaded brush using thick, painterly strokes. The background was finished next, as it overlaps the figures in some areas. Finally, contour strokes were applied to finish the figures with special attention to that of the saint. A slight contour change is discernible along the lower edge of the Virgin's blue mantle; a small artist's change is also visible at its lowest point near her feet.

The tacking margins have been removed and the canvas extended approximately 0.5 cm beyond the original picture surface. Cusping is present along all four edges of the fabric. Inpainted losses are found primarily along the top and bottom edges. The varnish is slightly hazy. In 1954, the painting was relined, discolored varnish was removed, and the painting was restored by Mario Modestini.

Bibliography

1942: Arslan, Edoardo. "Nota breve sul Piazzetta." Le Arti 5 (1942): 206, n., as contemporary copy.

1942: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. "Unbekannte Werke Piazzettas." Pantheon 29 (1942): 49, repro.

1943: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Giovanni Battista Piazzetta. 2nd ed. Rome, 1943: 10.

1956: Pallucchini, Rodolfo. Piazzetta. Milan, 1956: 18, 20, figs. 24, 25, 27.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 246, repro.

1963: Haskell, Francis. Patrons and Painters. London, 1963: 273 (2nd ed., 1985).

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 101.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 89, repro.

1969: Zampetti, Pietro. Dal Ricci al Tiepolo. Exh. cat. Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1969: 128.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 163.

1973: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 137-138, fig. 270.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 264, repro.

1975: Residenzgalerie mit Sammlung Czernin und Sammlung Schönborn-Buchheim. Salzburg, 1975: 87 (2nd ed., 1980).

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:365-366; 2:pl. 264.

1981: Jones, Leslie. "The Paintings of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta." 3 vols. Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1981: 2:223-224, no. 73; figs. 27-30, as copy finished by Piazzetta.

1982: Mariuz, Adriano, with Rodolfo Pallucchini. L'opera completa del Piazzetta. Milan, 1982: 85, no. 43, repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 304, repro.

1992: Knox, George. Giambattista Piazzetta 1682-1754. Oxford, 1992: 102, fig. 80.

1994: The Glory of Venice. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Museo del Settecento Veneziano - Ca'Rezzonico, Venice; Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, 1994-1995: 153, 476, cat. 73, color repro.

1996: De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 207-212, repro. 209.