Pope Saint Cornelius with Saints Artemia and Januaria

Former TitleThe Church Triumphing over Evil

Artist Gaetano Lapis (Italian, 1706 - 1773)

Date1736-1737

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 25 9/16 × 12 13/16 inches (64.92 × 32.56 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: the Mrs. Joseph Real Brown Fund

Object numberF79-42

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionA man with white beard (Pope Saint Cornelius) stands at center wearing a jeweled papal tiara and a gold and fuschia embroidered robe with a green lining and white undergarment. His left hand and arm support a silver cross, with three transverse bars, and a palm frond. He looks down to a kneeling woman (Saint Artemia) who wears a mauve robe and blue mantle, holds a stem of white lilies and a palm frond in both hands. To the right and slightly behind Saint Cornelius kneels a girl with blond hair (Saint Januaria) holding a stem of white lilies to her chest. In the left middle ground is the bottom portion of a large column; the upper register comprises six cherubim and two angels in clouds and a white dove radiating divine light.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

No known exhibition history at this time.

Provenance

Possibly with Chiltern Street Gallery, London, ca. 1959 [1];

Fine Old Master Pictures, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, November 3, 1978, lot 95, as The Church Triumphing over Evil;

With Somerville & Simpson, Ltd., London, by March 20, 1979;

Purchased from Somerville & Simpson, through the generosity of Mrs. Joseph Real Brown, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1979.

NOTES:

[1] Michael Simpson, Somerville & Simpson, Ltd., to Edgar Peters Bowron, Curator, March 20, 1979, NAMA curatorial files.

Published References

Fine Old Master Pictures, The Properties of Major Michael Bond, The Trustees of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, The Countess of Sutherland, The Szeben-Peto Foundation and from various sources (London: Christie, Mason and Woods, November 3, 1978), 22, as The Church Triumphing over Evil.

Eliot W. Rowlands, The Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Italian Paintings 1300-1800, (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 392-95, (repro.).

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